Is The Zapruder Film The Fake Of The Century?

by Volker Kluepfel

November 22, 1963: Many people all over the world claim they still remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the shocking news: John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
     For decades, the U.S. president’s assassination caused intense discussion. Was there a conspiracy? Who was involved? And the topic is still on the agenda: more than 80 books have ben published with the words “assassination” and “JFK” in the title. Typing these keywords in an Internet search engine leads to countless websites.
     The famed Zapruder film, showing the Dallas shooting frame-by-frame, does its part to keep the fire burning, as everyone can now buy a copy of the digitally enhanced version of the film on video or CD.
     The film was shot by Abraham Zapruder, a Dallas dress manufacturer. He was a great fan of the president and he never quite got over the assassination. His own film was the last report about Kennedy he would ever watch.
     His film is certainly the best- known film of the assassination. But what does it really show? For most people it is a clock of the assassination, a unique document that depicts exactly what happened on this tragic day.
     “This is just what they want us to believe,” says Harrison E. Livingstone, a Baltimore author who has published four books about the assassination and the alleged conspiracy behind it; two were best-sellers. For Livingstone there is no doubt: The Zapruder film is fake and therefore the hoax of the century.
     His conclusions go even further: Zapruder was used in this conspiracy because the assassins wantedto have a film of the events to support their version of what happened on that day. Supposedly Zapruder was directed to Dealey Plaza to shoot the film, although he did not want to, as he claimed later. Livingstone also talks about connections of Zapruder’s partner Erwin Schwartz to the Mafia and Jack Ruby (who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of JFK).
     Whatever one might think of this theory, there are some disturbing facts that cause at least doubts on the official one-killer/three-bullets version (also called the “magic bullet theory,” because--as two bullets missed the president--one single bullet must have been responsible for Kennedy’s throat and head wounds as well as hitting Governor Connally).
     The blob: By watching the Zapruder film carefully, one might notice a huge blob covering Kennedy’s head in the frames where the fatal head shot hits him. One strange thing is that this blob does not develop from a small blob to a big one over the frames. This blob, which might appear as an exploding brain, covers exactly that part of the face shown to be missing in the autopsy skull x-rays. And it appears on the right temple area of the face--where in fact no entry wound was noted in Dallas. Not a single witness noticed an entry wound there. Even the autopsy showed no harm to the face. But the small wound in Kennedy’s throat was noticed by the doctors and nurses--so the head wound that seems so gigantic in the Zapruder film should have been noticed as well. Therefore the Zapruder film must have animated special effects in it, Livingstone concludes. The blob is drawn in the frame to encourage the idea that Kennedy was shot from behind (where Oswald was located).
     The backward movement of the head: Many people think that the movie shows clearly that Kennedy took a shot from the front, because his head makes a fast backward movement. But there is also a light movement forward before his head rockets back. In other words: This does not prove anything. There was even a scientific explanation launched to explain the backward movement in connection with a shot from behind (the so called “jet effect”).
     Livingstone presents another explanation: There were two shots at approximately the same time, one from behind, one from the front. Witnesses said that parts of the head were blown in different directions--another indication of more than one bullet. To give the impression that there was only one shot, Livingston believes several frames of the film were removed. He points out that it was not possible to remove every frame of the fatal head shot, but forgers could easily produce the illusion of one single shot. If two shots from different directions had been depicted, a cover-up of a conspiracy would have been impossible.
     “They” just had to make a decision which movement of the head to eliminate. As it was impossible to forge the extreme backward movement in such a short time, the decision was clear.
     The splices in the film: Some obvious splices appear on the Zapruder film. For Livingstone their only purpose is to distract attention from other, not-so-visible splices of the film that resulted from removing frames.
     The stopping of the limousine: Another sign that the film has been altered is that some 20 witnesses claimed the limousine carrying the president had stopped for 6 to 10 seconds after the first shots (or at least slowed down to almost come to a stop), a fact not shown on the film. For Livingstone the only reasonable explanation for this contradiction is that frames have been removed. He even thinks that the driver of the limousine was part of the conspiracy and slowed down the car to make Kennedy an easier target for the assassins until the deadly head shot hit him.
     Brain and head matter on the rear end: The Zapruder film does not show any parts of the skull or brain on the rear end of the car . This debris must have been there, because witnesses saw it and Jackie Kennedy actually climbed on the rear end of the limo to get part of Kennedy’s head back in the car.
     But how was it possible to alter the film? Right after the assassination, the film was brought to a photo studio in Dallas, where it was developed. The official story says that Zapruder sold the original and one copy to Lifemagazine for $150,000 the next day and gave the other two copies to the Secret Service ((which gave one of these copies to the FBI). There is a strong indication that the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC, a CIA department) conducted a study of the original film on the night of the assassination.
     Was it possible that the conspirators got the film to Washington on the day of the assassination and back the next day? Livingstone says yes., explaining they would only have had to delude Zapruder and use jets to fly the film to Washington the night of November 22 and back on the next day. The technology to alter a film already existed in 1963.
     Today, the original Zapruder film is in cold storage in the National Archives. On August 1, the film became the property of the U.S. government, but the FBI has to pay a “fair” price for it to the Zapruder family. While the Feds offered $3 million, the Zapruders have asked for $18 million. (The Zapruder family got the film rights back from Life magazine for $1, after bootlegs had been shown to the public. The family always made the film accessible for scholars free of charge.)
     Livingstone thinks there is another film that shows the assassination as it really was. But this film, according to Livingstone, was never shown to the public and is still kept as one of the best secrets of the government.
     Besides, there are many different versions of the Zapruder film. For example, films transferred to video for showing on TV are altered by machinery in order to fit the video format. According to Livingstone, the plan of the conspirators worked: By issuing many different versions that concentrate on different details of the film, rather than the whole context (including the testimonies of all witnesses), research will be made more difficult, and progress can hardly be made because the discussion gets stuck on tiny details.
     As a time frame of the assassination, Livingstone insists, the film is useless. Depending on the images-per-second one uses to show the film, the events are shaded differently. For example, in the official version, the time Oswald needed to reload, aim and fire his gun (leaving aside that he would have had to have been one of the best gunmen in the world to do all this from this distance and still hit Kennedy) was enough (2.3 seconds). But as soon as one tries a different pace, there is a different reality. Thus, says Livingstone, the film itself became an instrument of conspiracy.
     Other evidence released: In addition to the new ready availability of the Zapruder film, the Assassination Records Review Board, a federal agency, recently released interviews with witnesses that were not previously available to the public. According to Livingstone, who has had access to the new information, “All witnesses insist that various things they saw are not in the autopsy photographs.” In addition, witnesses say key photos and x-rays are missing. Livingstone also reports, “All witnesses flatly denied that the pictures showing the back of [Kennedy’s] head are accurate.”
     Livingstone points out, in a written summary of the newly released evidence, “We should put far more trust in what witnesses to the actual body and wounds say if enough of them say the same thing.”
     But Livingstone, who has spent most of his adult life independently investigating the Kennedy assassination, does not hold much hope that the whole story will come out--at least not from the government. “Too many people have too much at stake either politically or professionally to allow the truth to emerge, even though it has been squeezed out drop by drop over the years.”