26-04-2010, 12:32 AM
JIM REPLIES TO DAVID LIFTON ABOUT THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE IN RELATION TO ZAPRUDER FAKERY
Just for the record, I have no problem with what you are saying here. What I was referring to was the use of the combination of these findings--the patch to the back of the X-ray, the missing mass at the right-front, the LIFE Magazine caption, the TV appearance of Abraham Zapruder, and the addition of the "blob" to the images in the film--for the purpose of providing mutually-reinforcing but fabricated "evidence" to support the thesis that the shooter was above and behind. It was putting these pieces together in the fashion that I presented them in "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" to explain how they intended to create the impression that he had been hit in the head by a bullet from above and behind, when the actual event blew his brains to the left and to the rear, for which I was claiming credit (and, of course, the discovery that the blow out is actually visible in frame 374). It was only the way I put all of these pieces together to discern exactly how they were going to try to get away with it for which I meant to assert discovery--which is hard to dispute, since, to the best of my knowledge, no one else (including you and David Mantik) has made the point about the missing mass from the right-front of the lateral-cranial and the anterior-posterior X-rays. Correct me if I am wrong, but even Gary Aguilar, on the occasion of our first meeting, told me that the APPEARANCE of missing mass was an effect of OVEREXPOSURE and was not genuine. I thought that was a rather odd thing to say to me on our first meeting, but it stuck with me and I now believe not only that he was wrong but that the missing mass was a crucial ingredient in the medical cover-up that could be used to support what is seen in the film. We know it was not true, of course, from Jackie's testimony and virtually every other report about the appearance of his face where, as Jackie put it, from the front, he looked just fine (but that she had had a terrible time trying to hold his brains and skull together at the rear of his head). My admiration for your and David's work on the medical evidence, which has now been reinforced by Doug Horne, knows no bounds. But, so far as I am aware, I was the first to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together in the article that I cite, where, even today, David has not told me that he agrees with me about that missing mass I discern in the X-rays. I am glad to have you post about this here, a "collateral benefit" of our differences about Judyth and what happened in New Orleans. Consider what I said as I meant it to be understood and see if you don't agree with me about it.
[quote name='David Lifton' post='190394' date='Apr 22 2010, 11:14 AM']Jim,
A number of statements made in your post #1447 (a post asserting who was responsible for a number of original discoveries re theories pertaining to the falsification of the Z film) are incorrect. Immediately below is your statement, and below that is my attempt to “clarify the record” regarding your claim of being “apparently the first” to discover an “interlocking pattern of deception” etc.
Here is your statement:
• Re “It was I who . . . [was] apparently the first to explain the interlocking pattern of deception involved in painting in the blow-out to the right front (“the blob”), the patch the back of the head (which Mantik discovered), the Life Magazine caption for its Frame 313. . . “
This statement contains multiple errors, and numerous false implications. Rather than try to sort through each one, here is my own statement, “for the record” (as the saying goes):
•The school year 1966-67: The business of the back of the head being blacked out on the Zapruder frames was perfectly obvious --certainly, to me--when I was able to examine Life’s 3" x 4 “ transparencies when they were sent to Los Angeles as part of Professor Wesley Liebeler’s UCLA Law School seminar on the Warren Commission, in the school year 966-67. That the back of the head was “blacked out” was already noticeable from frames of the film published in the 11/29/63 of Life Magazine, the LIFE MEMORIAL issue (Dec 7, 1963) and the October, 1964 issue Life Magazine. But Liebeler's UCLA class was the first time I realized that it actually appeared that way (i.e., blacked out) on the Life slide set.
•In June, 1970, at the Beverly Hills office of Time-Life: it was very obvious to me—and three other JFK researchers—who spent hours examining the 35 mm version of the Zapruder film that (a) the back of the head seemed artificially blacked out and (b ) the so-called “large head wound” was painted on. This was the first time I could see with my own eyes that this blacking out was not just a feature of the Life slide set (which I had already seen, as noted, when I examined the slides as part of Liebeler's UCLA Law class) but on the actual film itself. In June, 1970, I was able to actually pull a 16mm copy of the original Z film through a Recordak Microfilm reader, and could see the blacking out right there on the screen. All this is described in detail in “Pig on a Leash,” which I wrote and was published in the anthology you edited (2003). As a consequence of a letter written by the famous Hollywood director, Haskell Wexler, (in which we were described as "appraisers"), we all were able to examine these extraordinary materials, and we could all see that (a) the back of the head had been blacked out and (b ) the “wounds” appeared painted on. The four were: Fred Newcomb, Jack Clemente, Dennis Roy, and myself—we all saw it. It was rather obvious. “Can you believe this?! They altered the Zapruder film!” That was the general tone of the reaction. Of course, we didn’t know how “they” had done it, or exactly who “they” were.
•Turning to the situation as it existed in 1980: in writing Best Evidence, I was quite aware that while I was contrasting the Dallas and Bethesda description of the wounds (in making the case that the boy had been altered) that the Zapruder film frames portrayed “Bethesda-like” wounding. Also, by that time, the famous CIA documents (CIA 450) had been released to Paul Hoch under the FOIA. Consequently, firmly convinced that the film had been altered, but seeing no practical way to argue that on the pages of a hardcover book (remember: there was no email, or YouTube back then), I wrote what I called my “Zapruder film footnote”—a 750 word summary about the situation, calling attention to these key facts. This was written specifically with an eye to the future, and to preempt anyone who would cite the imagery on certain Z film frames and attempt to argue my central thesis was false. The “Zapruder film footnote” was published in Chapter 24 in Best Evidence, published in January, 1981,and discusses the artificiality of the back of the head being blacked out, as it appears on the Zapruder film. It also published the text of an April 1980 letter by Dallas doctor Peters (to JFK researcher Wallace Milam, another JFK researcher who, by the way, also firmly believed the Z film had been falsified, and that the head wound imagery had been painted on. Dr. Peters, who saw the President’s head in Dallas, said the large head wound that appeared towards the front, in the Z film frames sent him by Milam, must be an artifact, and in any event was not what he examined JFK at Parkland Hospital. In any event: please note that I was on record with the belief that the Zapruder film was altered, for these reasons, and published this in Best Evidence in 1981.
Continuing with my own follow-up activities re Z film being altered, and specifically, the head wound imagery being “painted on”:
•It was again rather obvious when I was able to obtain the actual 35mm Weitzman negative in July, 1990, in New York City, rented facilities at an optical lab, personally operated the Oxberry Optical Printer, and made blowups of this sequence—and, for precisely that reason: that the back of the head looked blacked out, and the head wounds painted on. Another purpose of doing all this was to break--once and for all--Robert Groden's "monopoly" on the Z film. Again, see my essay in Pig on a Leash, published in TGZFH, 2003, for details.
•In October, 1992, I decided to “give away” all my Zapruder insights, because I was fed up with Robert Groden presenting slow motion enlarged imagery, implying that the wounding of Kennedy, as shown in the Zapruder film, was faithful to what the Dallas doctors saw. Obviously, it was not. In my presentation, which was preserved on audio tape, I explained how the Zapruder film could have been altered using an optical printer. In the audience was Noel Twyman, and Harrison Livingstone. Both were quite excited by my presentation. Twyman immediately sought some guidance and advice, which I provided. Both went on to write books on the subject of the Z film being altered, and both talked about the falsification of the imagery. Also, by this time, JFK researcher Wallace Milam was thoroughly convinced the Z film had been falsified, and we had many conversations about it.
•At the JFK Lancer convention of 1996, I gave a multi-hour talk on the falsification of the Zapruder film, and the related falsification of the imagery. (Its all on video tape.)
•At the Lancer convention in 1998, and looking for something additional to say, since I had already presented all the major points in my 1996 presentation, I decided to focus on the back of the head being blacked out, and the artificality of the head wound imagery. So I went to the trouble of taking my Weitzman 35 mm internegative to an L.A. optical house, again hiring time on an optical printer, and creating a “reversal color internegative,” --this time focusing on the enlarged imagery of JFK’s head, in the 20-30 frames after the fatal show, and creating the result in "reversal" color--i.e., so that the blackened out area would appear to be white, in frame after frame, and then step-printing the result and presenting it as the main feature of my presentation arguing that the Zapruder film had been falsified, and the back of the head had been blacked out. (My presentation should be available as a JFK Lancer video).
•Regarding David Mantik: no doubt, once he became interested in the JFK assassination (he called me around 1992, with high praise for my book, which I assumed he had recently read), he also realized the obvious: that the back of the head was artificially patched, but I do not know when that was. When did he first have an opportunity to examine a high quality duplicate of the Zapruder film? I know he asked to borrow certain Nix frames about 1994; and I also do remember on at least one occasion, in the early 1990s, asking Mantik—who had done densitometry on the JFK X-rays, whether it would be possible to do densitometry readings on the 35 mm Weitzman negative to show that the “blacking out” was completely artificial.
•As to the changing captions in the frames of Life Magazine’s famous issue of October, 1964—your statement also implies that you were the first in that area, too. FYI: those discoveries were made starting in October, 1964, so I do not understand why anyone would lay claim to such discoveries much beyond that. Specifically: Ray Marcus in Southern California and Vince Salandria in Philadelphia (not to mention Josiah Thompson, Thomas Stamm, Sylvia Meagher and others)--all knew that the captions had been changed. (Salandria even obtained a letter from Life editor Ed Kearn on the extraordinary and explicable changes). At UC/Berkeley, Paul Hoch collected all the Life issues and produced a tabular graphic –a matrix of sorts--tracking the changing caption and pictures. In Best Evidence, published in January, 1981, I commented on Hoch’s work—and I did the same in Pig on a Leash, published in the anthology you edited, published in 2003. So that discovery—about the Life issue of October, 1964, and its changing captions—goes back some 47 years.
In summary: Having lived and toiled in these vineyards for some 40 years, it irks me to see someone come along decades later and blithely claim credit for discoveries which were made decades ago, and were a source of constant commentary among knowledgeable JFK researchers (back then called “Warren Report critics”).
As an expert in logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, you should be more careful.
DSL
4/22/10; 2 AM PDT
Los Angeles, CA[/quote]
Just for the record, I have no problem with what you are saying here. What I was referring to was the use of the combination of these findings--the patch to the back of the X-ray, the missing mass at the right-front, the LIFE Magazine caption, the TV appearance of Abraham Zapruder, and the addition of the "blob" to the images in the film--for the purpose of providing mutually-reinforcing but fabricated "evidence" to support the thesis that the shooter was above and behind. It was putting these pieces together in the fashion that I presented them in "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid" to explain how they intended to create the impression that he had been hit in the head by a bullet from above and behind, when the actual event blew his brains to the left and to the rear, for which I was claiming credit (and, of course, the discovery that the blow out is actually visible in frame 374). It was only the way I put all of these pieces together to discern exactly how they were going to try to get away with it for which I meant to assert discovery--which is hard to dispute, since, to the best of my knowledge, no one else (including you and David Mantik) has made the point about the missing mass from the right-front of the lateral-cranial and the anterior-posterior X-rays. Correct me if I am wrong, but even Gary Aguilar, on the occasion of our first meeting, told me that the APPEARANCE of missing mass was an effect of OVEREXPOSURE and was not genuine. I thought that was a rather odd thing to say to me on our first meeting, but it stuck with me and I now believe not only that he was wrong but that the missing mass was a crucial ingredient in the medical cover-up that could be used to support what is seen in the film. We know it was not true, of course, from Jackie's testimony and virtually every other report about the appearance of his face where, as Jackie put it, from the front, he looked just fine (but that she had had a terrible time trying to hold his brains and skull together at the rear of his head). My admiration for your and David's work on the medical evidence, which has now been reinforced by Doug Horne, knows no bounds. But, so far as I am aware, I was the first to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together in the article that I cite, where, even today, David has not told me that he agrees with me about that missing mass I discern in the X-rays. I am glad to have you post about this here, a "collateral benefit" of our differences about Judyth and what happened in New Orleans. Consider what I said as I meant it to be understood and see if you don't agree with me about it.
[quote name='David Lifton' post='190394' date='Apr 22 2010, 11:14 AM']Jim,
A number of statements made in your post #1447 (a post asserting who was responsible for a number of original discoveries re theories pertaining to the falsification of the Z film) are incorrect. Immediately below is your statement, and below that is my attempt to “clarify the record” regarding your claim of being “apparently the first” to discover an “interlocking pattern of deception” etc.
Here is your statement:
• Re “It was I who . . . [was] apparently the first to explain the interlocking pattern of deception involved in painting in the blow-out to the right front (“the blob”), the patch the back of the head (which Mantik discovered), the Life Magazine caption for its Frame 313. . . “
This statement contains multiple errors, and numerous false implications. Rather than try to sort through each one, here is my own statement, “for the record” (as the saying goes):
•The school year 1966-67: The business of the back of the head being blacked out on the Zapruder frames was perfectly obvious --certainly, to me--when I was able to examine Life’s 3" x 4 “ transparencies when they were sent to Los Angeles as part of Professor Wesley Liebeler’s UCLA Law School seminar on the Warren Commission, in the school year 966-67. That the back of the head was “blacked out” was already noticeable from frames of the film published in the 11/29/63 of Life Magazine, the LIFE MEMORIAL issue (Dec 7, 1963) and the October, 1964 issue Life Magazine. But Liebeler's UCLA class was the first time I realized that it actually appeared that way (i.e., blacked out) on the Life slide set.
•In June, 1970, at the Beverly Hills office of Time-Life: it was very obvious to me—and three other JFK researchers—who spent hours examining the 35 mm version of the Zapruder film that (a) the back of the head seemed artificially blacked out and (b ) the so-called “large head wound” was painted on. This was the first time I could see with my own eyes that this blacking out was not just a feature of the Life slide set (which I had already seen, as noted, when I examined the slides as part of Liebeler's UCLA Law class) but on the actual film itself. In June, 1970, I was able to actually pull a 16mm copy of the original Z film through a Recordak Microfilm reader, and could see the blacking out right there on the screen. All this is described in detail in “Pig on a Leash,” which I wrote and was published in the anthology you edited (2003). As a consequence of a letter written by the famous Hollywood director, Haskell Wexler, (in which we were described as "appraisers"), we all were able to examine these extraordinary materials, and we could all see that (a) the back of the head had been blacked out and (b ) the “wounds” appeared painted on. The four were: Fred Newcomb, Jack Clemente, Dennis Roy, and myself—we all saw it. It was rather obvious. “Can you believe this?! They altered the Zapruder film!” That was the general tone of the reaction. Of course, we didn’t know how “they” had done it, or exactly who “they” were.
•Turning to the situation as it existed in 1980: in writing Best Evidence, I was quite aware that while I was contrasting the Dallas and Bethesda description of the wounds (in making the case that the boy had been altered) that the Zapruder film frames portrayed “Bethesda-like” wounding. Also, by that time, the famous CIA documents (CIA 450) had been released to Paul Hoch under the FOIA. Consequently, firmly convinced that the film had been altered, but seeing no practical way to argue that on the pages of a hardcover book (remember: there was no email, or YouTube back then), I wrote what I called my “Zapruder film footnote”—a 750 word summary about the situation, calling attention to these key facts. This was written specifically with an eye to the future, and to preempt anyone who would cite the imagery on certain Z film frames and attempt to argue my central thesis was false. The “Zapruder film footnote” was published in Chapter 24 in Best Evidence, published in January, 1981,and discusses the artificiality of the back of the head being blacked out, as it appears on the Zapruder film. It also published the text of an April 1980 letter by Dallas doctor Peters (to JFK researcher Wallace Milam, another JFK researcher who, by the way, also firmly believed the Z film had been falsified, and that the head wound imagery had been painted on. Dr. Peters, who saw the President’s head in Dallas, said the large head wound that appeared towards the front, in the Z film frames sent him by Milam, must be an artifact, and in any event was not what he examined JFK at Parkland Hospital. In any event: please note that I was on record with the belief that the Zapruder film was altered, for these reasons, and published this in Best Evidence in 1981.
Continuing with my own follow-up activities re Z film being altered, and specifically, the head wound imagery being “painted on”:
•It was again rather obvious when I was able to obtain the actual 35mm Weitzman negative in July, 1990, in New York City, rented facilities at an optical lab, personally operated the Oxberry Optical Printer, and made blowups of this sequence—and, for precisely that reason: that the back of the head looked blacked out, and the head wounds painted on. Another purpose of doing all this was to break--once and for all--Robert Groden's "monopoly" on the Z film. Again, see my essay in Pig on a Leash, published in TGZFH, 2003, for details.
•In October, 1992, I decided to “give away” all my Zapruder insights, because I was fed up with Robert Groden presenting slow motion enlarged imagery, implying that the wounding of Kennedy, as shown in the Zapruder film, was faithful to what the Dallas doctors saw. Obviously, it was not. In my presentation, which was preserved on audio tape, I explained how the Zapruder film could have been altered using an optical printer. In the audience was Noel Twyman, and Harrison Livingstone. Both were quite excited by my presentation. Twyman immediately sought some guidance and advice, which I provided. Both went on to write books on the subject of the Z film being altered, and both talked about the falsification of the imagery. Also, by this time, JFK researcher Wallace Milam was thoroughly convinced the Z film had been falsified, and we had many conversations about it.
•At the JFK Lancer convention of 1996, I gave a multi-hour talk on the falsification of the Zapruder film, and the related falsification of the imagery. (Its all on video tape.)
•At the Lancer convention in 1998, and looking for something additional to say, since I had already presented all the major points in my 1996 presentation, I decided to focus on the back of the head being blacked out, and the artificality of the head wound imagery. So I went to the trouble of taking my Weitzman 35 mm internegative to an L.A. optical house, again hiring time on an optical printer, and creating a “reversal color internegative,” --this time focusing on the enlarged imagery of JFK’s head, in the 20-30 frames after the fatal show, and creating the result in "reversal" color--i.e., so that the blackened out area would appear to be white, in frame after frame, and then step-printing the result and presenting it as the main feature of my presentation arguing that the Zapruder film had been falsified, and the back of the head had been blacked out. (My presentation should be available as a JFK Lancer video).
•Regarding David Mantik: no doubt, once he became interested in the JFK assassination (he called me around 1992, with high praise for my book, which I assumed he had recently read), he also realized the obvious: that the back of the head was artificially patched, but I do not know when that was. When did he first have an opportunity to examine a high quality duplicate of the Zapruder film? I know he asked to borrow certain Nix frames about 1994; and I also do remember on at least one occasion, in the early 1990s, asking Mantik—who had done densitometry on the JFK X-rays, whether it would be possible to do densitometry readings on the 35 mm Weitzman negative to show that the “blacking out” was completely artificial.
•As to the changing captions in the frames of Life Magazine’s famous issue of October, 1964—your statement also implies that you were the first in that area, too. FYI: those discoveries were made starting in October, 1964, so I do not understand why anyone would lay claim to such discoveries much beyond that. Specifically: Ray Marcus in Southern California and Vince Salandria in Philadelphia (not to mention Josiah Thompson, Thomas Stamm, Sylvia Meagher and others)--all knew that the captions had been changed. (Salandria even obtained a letter from Life editor Ed Kearn on the extraordinary and explicable changes). At UC/Berkeley, Paul Hoch collected all the Life issues and produced a tabular graphic –a matrix of sorts--tracking the changing caption and pictures. In Best Evidence, published in January, 1981, I commented on Hoch’s work—and I did the same in Pig on a Leash, published in the anthology you edited, published in 2003. So that discovery—about the Life issue of October, 1964, and its changing captions—goes back some 47 years.
In summary: Having lived and toiled in these vineyards for some 40 years, it irks me to see someone come along decades later and blithely claim credit for discoveries which were made decades ago, and were a source of constant commentary among knowledgeable JFK researchers (back then called “Warren Report critics”).
As an expert in logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, you should be more careful.
DSL
4/22/10; 2 AM PDT
Los Angeles, CA[/quote]