LR Trotter Wrote:Over the years while studying the research of the JFK Assassination, from time to time the issue of Zapruder Film chain of custody seemed to have stretched, if not missing links. Without available specifics, there seems to be a degree of available possibility for thorough study and at least minimal alteration before "limited" viewing.

Allan Eaglesham Wrote:

LR Trotter Wrote:Over the years while studying the research of the JFK Assassination, from time to time the issue of Zapruder Film chain of custody seemed to have stretched, if not missing links. Without available specifics, there seems to be a degree of available possibility for thorough study and at least minimal alteration before "limited" viewing.

Sorry if I am being obtuse, Larry, but I don't understand your post. Are you referring to Z-film alteration in general terms or Doug's work in particular?

Thank you.

Allan

LR Trotter Wrote:

Allan Eaglesham Wrote:

LR Trotter Wrote:Over the years while studying the research of the JFK Assassination, from time to time the issue of Zapruder Film chain of custody seemed to have stretched, if not missing links. Without available specifics, there seems to be a degree of available possibility for thorough study and at least minimal alteration before "limited" viewing.

Sorry if I am being obtuse, Larry, but I don't understand your post. Are you referring to Z-film alteration in general terms or Doug's work in particular?

Thank you.

Allan

Allan, I was more or less speaking in general terms, and that the mentioned study seems to bring about some specifics, at least for me.

Quote:An indefensible position:

In his 2003 book, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, author David Wrone wrote the following on page 125:

"Regarding the CIA, no scrap of paper, legitimate witness, or indirect source of any merit places the agency or any of its surrogates indirectly or directly in connection with the film on November 22 or the following two days."

In view of the two NPIC events discussed above, this statement is demonstrably wrong in every particular. Homer McMahon (Head of the NPIC Color Lab in 1963) and Dino Brugioni (Chief Information Officer at NPIC) were certainly "legitimate witnesses" and "sources of merit," as was Ben Hunter, a CIA career man who was still working for the Agency when the ARRB staff interviewed him in 1997. The CIA's code name "Hawkeyeworks," referring to the Top Secret lab at Kodak headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., with which the CIA had a close association through several classified contracts, was where the second Zapruder film delivered to NPIC, on 11/24/63, had been processed; thus "Hawkeyeworks" certainly qualifies as one of "the CIA's surrogates." The "thoroughly documented lack of official interest in the Zapruder film" that David Wrone writes about on page 125 is a figment of his imagination. The two NPIC events detailed by Brugioni (event # 1, commencing 11/23/63) and McMahon and Hunter (event # 2, commencing 11/24/63) indicate a great deal of interest, indeed, by the U.S. government, immediately following the assassination of President Kennedy, and precisely within the two-day period that David Wrone so falsely characterized. Two compartmentalized operations took place on the weekend of November 23-25, 1963, at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in the nation's capital. Secret Service couriers were shuttling the Zapruder film to Washington, D.C. from Chicago, and then the next day from Rochester, New York, back to Washington again. Even as late as 1975, Mr. Hicks, the Director of NPIC, was withholding important information from one vital and trusted employee (Dino Brugioni), and was withholding other important information from the Rockefeller Commission, in an attempt to keep the lid on what had happened with the Zapruder film at NPIC.

The two NPIC events are indeed "signposts" to the Zapruder film's alteration. The only way in which the two NPIC events can be properly understood or explained is in the context of the film's alteration at "Hawkeyeworks" on the very weekend immediately following President Kennedy's assassination.

Quote:A startling revelation in 2011 the "head explosion" seen in the extant Zapruder film, in the National Archives today, is not at all consistent with the head explosion seen by Mr. Brugioni in the Zapruder film he viewed on the evening of November 23, 1963: During the follow-up interview at Dino Brugioni's home on April 28, 2011, Peter Janney showed Mr. Brugioni a good image of frame 313 from the extant Zapruder film the so-called "head explosion" scanned from a 35 mm dupe negative of the film obtained from the National Archives. [The provenance of the frame used therefore unquestionably represents what is in the National Archives today.] Mr. Brugioni was quite startled to find out that this was the only frame graphically depicting the "head explosion" in the extant film, which the National Archives has characterized as "the original film." He insisted that the head explosion he viewed multiple times on 11/23/63 was of such a great size, and duration (in terms of time), that there should be many more frames depicting that explosion than "just the one frame" (frame 313), as shown in the Zapruder film today. Furthermore, he said the "head explosion" depicted in the Zapruder film today is too small in size, and too low in the frame, to be the same graphic depiction he recalls witnessing in the Zapruder film on Saturday, November 23rd, 1963 at NPIC. Mr. Brugioni viewed the Zapruder film as a motion picture several times during the HD video interview I conducted with him on July 9, 2011 using the 1998 MPI DVD product, Image of an Assassination, made by the LMH Co. in 1997 from the film in the National Archives and reiterated those comments that he made on April 28th to Peter Janney, insisting that "something was missing" from the film in the National Archives today. While viewing the video on July 9, 2011, Mr. Brugioni also stated that the head explosion he viewed was a large "white cloud" that surrounded President Kennedy's head, and was not pink or red, as shown in the extant Zapruder film. The words below are excerpted from Dino Brugioni's April 28, 2011 interview with Peter Janney, as he recounted what he recalled seeing when he watched the head explosion in the Zapruder film on 11/23/63:

"…I remember all of us being shocked…it was straight up [gesturing high above his own head]…in the sky…There should have been more than one frame…I thought the spray was, say, three or four feet from his head…what I saw was more than that [than frame 313 in today's film]…it wasn't low [as in frame 313], it was high…there was more than that in the original…It was way high off of his head…and I can't imagine that there would only be one frame. What I saw was more than you have there [in frame 313]." [17] [emphasis as spoken]

Quote:The Head Explosion:

As discussed earlier in this paper, Dino Brugioni opined during his July 9, 2011 interview with the author that the head explosion seen today in the extant Zapruder film is markedly different from what he saw on 11/23/63, when he worked with what he is certain was the camera-original film. The head explosion he recalls was much bigger than the one seen today in frame 313 of the extant film (going "three or four feet into the air"); was a "white cloud" that did not exhibit any of the pink or red color seen in frame 313 today; and was of such a duration that he is quite sure that in the film he viewed in 1963, there were many more frames than just one graphically depicting the fatal head shot on the film he viewed in 1963. Mr. Brugioni cannot, and does not, accept frame 313 of the extant Zapruder film as an accurate or complete representation of the fatal head shot he saw in the camera-original Zapruder film on the Saturday evening following President Kennedy's assassination.

He is supported in this view by two other opinions.

Erwin Schwartz, Abraham Zapruder's business partner, told interviewer Noel Twyman on November 21, 1994 that when he viewed the original film on Friday, November 22, 1963, he saw biological debris from the head explosion propelled to the left rear of the President when he viewed the film. This debris pattern is not visible on the film today, but dovetails with the consistent recollections of motorcycle officer Bobby W. Hargis, who was hit with great force at the time of the head shot by debris travelling to the left rear. [32]

Similarly, professional surveyors Robert West and Chester Breneman performed the first of several site surveys of Dealey Plaza that they participated in on Monday, November 25, 1963 for LIFE magazine. Breneman was quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on April 14, 1978 as saying that in using the color prints of individual Zapruder frames provided by LIFE, he could see in some of the prints "large blobs of blood and brain matter flying from Kennedy's head to the rear of the car." [33] Whether his remembered date for the LIFE-sponsored survey is precisely accurate or not, the important factor here is that he saw debris traveling to the rear of the President in enlargements made from individual frames of the Zapruder film imagery that is not seen in the extant film today. If his recollection that those images were provided by LIFE was correct, it suggests covert collusion between some at LIFE magazine and the U.S. government namely, a joint effort to determine exactly what did happen in Dealey Plaza, apparently using frames from the unaltered Zapruder film.

Given the decades-long ties between LIFE's publisher, C. D. Jackson, and the U.S. Intelligence Community, such collusion would not be surprising, particularly given LIFE magazine's history of false reporting in its December 6, 1963 issue about the imagery in the Zapruder film, and its suppression of the film as a motion picture for almost 12 years. [34] It seems clear to me that David Wrone got it all wrong in his book when he assessed LIFE's primary motive in its dealings with the Zapruder film as profit-driven. On the contrary, spending an additional $100,000.00 dollars on Monday, November 25th (beyond the original $50,000.00 spent on Saturday, November 23rd) to secure motion picture rights and total ownership of the film, and then never exploiting the film commercially as a motion picture for twelve years, speaks to suppression as the primary motive, rather than profit.