New COMMANDER W.B.PITZER PAGE WITH FULL FBI FILE

[Jan Klimkowski]

Remote filming equipment makes absolute sense seeing how being in the autopsy room would be a distraction and physical obstruction of the procedure.

Having spent more than 20 years of my life making broadcast television, the notion of using "remote filming equipment" in this context, doesn't make much sense to me.

Jan, I believe Alan just confirmed below that Bethesda had a Closed Circuit Television recording system in the autopsy room that the people Alan spoke to confirmed was used to record autopsies.

Where the hell do you get this twaddle? I confirmed nothing of the kind.

I agree with Allan Eaglesham that this appears to be a gross misrepresentation of his comments.

I traced two men who worked in television with Pitzer. Neither Mr. "A" nor Mr. "B" had any knowledge of a role played by William Pitzer in the autopsy on President Kennedy's body. And neither had any knowledge of a CCTV system permanently installed in the autopsy room at the BNH in 1963. Most of the CCTV feeds at the National Naval Medical Center went out from the television studio in Building 144 (where LCDR Pitzer's body was found); but feeds were generated at other locations within the hospital. Mr. A had no recollection of feeds from the autopsy room. Mr. B recalled CCTV generation from the autopsy room on a regular basis, not of autopsies however; the autopsy room was used for routine teaching purposes. This is consistent with CDR Humes' statement to the ARRB:
[The autopsy room] would accommodate maybe 20 or 30 people, because we used to have conferences in there. Routinely, at the end of each week, we would retain the organs from the autopsies of that week. In fact, not only did we review them there, there was a closed-circuit television. They went to Andrews Air Force Base, NIH, and it was a closed-circuit instruction program. Mr. B told me that for CCTV feeds from the autopsy room to elsewhere in the hospital and beyond, "we wheeled in a television camera."

We need to be very clear about terminology here.

Firstly, what is closed circuit television?

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point to point (P2P), point to multipoint, or mesh wireless links. Though almost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for surveillance in areas that may need monitoring such as banks, casinos, airports, military installations, and convenience stores

.

However, video cameras were not in widespread use in the 1960s. Nearly all cameras used film.

Let's dig a little into the history.

The first CCTV system was installed by Siemens AG at Test Stand VII in Peenemünde, Germany in 1942, for observing the launch of V-2 rockets.[4] The noted German engineer Walter Bruch was responsible for the technological design and installation of the system.

In the U.S. the first commercial closed-circuit television system became available in 1949, called Vericon. Very little is known about Vericon except it was advertised as not requiring a government permit.[5]

CCTV recording systems are still often used at modern launch sites to record the flight of the rockets, in order to find the possible causes of malfunctions,[6][7] while larger rockets are often fitted with CCTV allowing pictures of stage separation to be transmitted back to earth by radio link.[8]

The history of CCTV in the United States varies from that of the United Kingdom. One of its first appearances was in 1973 in Times Square in New York City.[9] The NYPD installed it in order to deter crime that was occurring in the area however crime rates did not appear to drop much due to the cameras.[9] Nevertheless, during the 1980s video surveillance began to spread across the country specifically targeting public areas.[10] It was seen as a cheaper way to deter crime compared to increasing the size of the police departments.[9] Some businesses as well, especially those that were prone to theft, began to use video surveillance.[9]

(snip)

In September 1968, Olean, New York was the first city in the United States to install video cameras along its main business street in an effort to fight crime.[11]

If there was Closed Circuit Television in Bethesda in 1963, I suspect it would have been used to transmit fuzzy wide shots from one room or building to another. There must also have been some means of network transmission to enable the footage to get from Bethesda to Andrews Air Force Base, NIH - especially if this was real time.

Mr. B told me that for CCTV feeds from the autopsy room to elsewhere in the hospital and beyond, "we wheeled in a television camera."

This suggests firstly that the technology was not remote CCTV, and secondly that it was probably a studio TV camera - those big old things with a massive tripod on a base with wheels which looks something like a Dalek. Such a camera would need a trained operator and a team of technicians to capture and trasmit the imagery.

This is not a one-man show. Also, the Dalek Camera would be highly visible - anyone near the President's body must have noticed it.

Is there any witness evidence of a TV camera on wheels being in the autopsy theatre?