Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (16 page)

His secretary called authorities and soon men came to take his film for
processing.

By Monday, November 25, Zapruder's film had been sold to Life
magazine. In charge of the sale was Life's publisher C. D. Jackson, who
later claimed he was so horrified by the film that he wanted to lock it
away. However, in later years, Jackson was shown to have been closely
associated with CIA officials. In one instance, when former CIA director
Walter Bedell Smith wanted prominent Americans as members of the shadowy and elitist Bilderberger organization, he said he "turned the
matter over to C. D. Jackson and things really got going."

Asked about this sale by Liebeler, Zapruder said:

Well, I just wonder whether I should answer it or not because it
involves a lot of things and it's not one price-it's a question of how
they are going to use it, are they going to use it or are they not going to
useit...

He finally said:

I received $25,000, as you know, and I have given that to the Firemen's
and Policemen's Benevolence with a suggestion, [to use the money] for
Mrs. Tippit [wife of the Dallas policeman slain the afternoon of the
assassination]

Later in his testimony, Zapruder told of giving his camera to Bell &
Howell for its archives. He said, in return, he asked the company to donate
a sound projector to the "Golden Age Group." He told Liebeler: "I didn't
want anything for myself.... I don't like to talk about it too much."

Like so much of the Warren Commission testimony, Zapruder's statement was less than truthful. A copy of his contract with Life reveals that
his eighteen-second film brought him more than $150,000. Why so much
for one film? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that no member
of the American public saw the Zapruder film run as a movie while it was
in the sole possession of Time-Life Corp.

While few, if any, of the Warren Commission members viewed the
film, single frames from this important piece of evidence were printed in
Volume XVIII. But an odd thing happened. No one who has viewed the
Zapruder film has been unaffected by the final, gory head shot followed
instantaneously by Kennedy's violent fall rearward. Most researchers consider this moment in the film as obvious evidence of a shot from Kennedy's right front (the area of the Grassy Knoll).

Yet when published by the Warren Commission, the critical frames that
depict the rearward motion of Kennedy's head were transposed to indicate
a forward motion. In 1965 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover explained this
reversing of the Zapruder frames as a "printing error."

Further twisting of what was depicted in the film came soon after the
assassination. In its December 6, 1963, issue, Life magazine reported the
fact that the Dallas doctors regarded a small wound in Kennedy's throat as
an entrance wound, a real problem considering that the Texas School Book
Depository was to his rear at all times. So a Life writer simply threw out
the explanation:

But [Zapruder's] 8mm film shows the President turning his body far
around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is
exposed-toward the sniper's nest just before he clutches it.

This account is patently wrong, as anyone who has seen the film can
verify. The reason for such wrongful information at such a critical time
will probably never be known, as the author of this statement, Paul
Mandel, died shortly afterward.

Then there is the story of Dan Rather, which has been known to
assassination researchers for years. Rather, then a CBS newsman, was the
only newsman present at a private screening of the Zapruder film the day
after the assassination. He described what was in the film over nationwide
radio and was fairly accurate until he described the fatal head shot.

Rather stated Kennedy's head "went forward with considerable violence," the exact opposite of what is in the film. Several months later,
Rather was promoted to White House correspondent for CBS and by the
1980s, he was chief news anchorman.

Another questionable statement by Rather involves his location at the
time of the assassination. In his book, The Camera Never Blinks, Rather
wrote how he was waiting to pick up news film from CBS cameraman in
the presidential motorcade. He wrote he was standing on the west side of
the Triple Underpass and missed witnessing the assassination by only a
few yards.

However, recently discovered film footage of the west side of the
underpass has now become public. This film plus some still photographs
show the Kennedy limousine speeding through the underpass and on to
Stemmons Freeway-but no sign of Dan Rather.

The American public finally got the opportunity to view the Zapruder
film only because of the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans during 1967-69.
During that turbulent trial, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison
attempted to prove there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy and
that New Orleans Trade Mart director Clay Shaw was a member of that
conspiracy.

As part of Garrison's attempt to prove the existence of a conspiracy,
he subpoenaed the Zapruder film from Time-Life Corp. Time-Life fought
this subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court, which finally ruled that
the corporation had to comply with the legal subpoena.

Time-Life grudgingly turned over to Garrison a somewhat blurry copy
of the film-but that was enough. Soon, thanks to the copying efforts of
Garrison's staff, bootleg Zapruder films were in the hands of several
assassination researchers.

Finally in March 1975, a copy of the film was aired nationally about
midnight on ABC's "Goodnight America." At long last, the American
public was able to see for themselves the assassination of their thirty-fifth
president.

Within a few years clearer copies of the Zapruder film became available
to the public.

From the beginning, researchers have used the Zapruder film as the
cornerstone of assassination evidence-a virtual time clock of the events in
Dealey Plaza, based on the known average camera speed of 18.3 frames
per second.

Today the Zapruder film itself has been called into question. In 1971,
author David Lifton was permitted to view an exceptionally good-quality
copy of the Zapruder film in Time-Life's Los Angeles office. He said the
rear of Kennedy's head in the critical moments following the head shot
appeared to have been "blacked out" and he discovered "splices on the
film which had never been mentioned by Time-Life."

His suspicion that the film may have been tampered with by persons
with access to sophisticated photographic equipment was heightened in
1976 with the release of CIA Item 450. This group of documents, pried
from the agency by a Freedom of Information suit, indicated the Zapruder
film was at the CIA's National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) possibly on the night of the assassination and "certainly within days of the
assassination." One of the documents tells of the existence of either a
negative or a master positive of the film and calls for the production of
four prints-one "test print" and three duplicates.

Interestingly, that number of prints is exactly what existed in Dallas the
day after the assassination-one original and three copies.

Lifton wrote:

In my view, previously unreported CIA possession of the Zapruder film
compromised the film's value as evidence: (1) the forward motion of
Kennedy's head, for one frame preceding frame 313, might be the
result of an altered film, and if that was so, it made the theory of a
foreward high-angle shot . . . completely unnecessary; (2) an altered
film might also explain why the occipital area [of Kennedy's head],
where the Dallas doctors saw a wound, appears suspiciously dark,
whereas a large wound appears on the forward, right-hand side of the
head, where the Dallas doctors saw no wound at all.

Photographic analyst and researcher Jack White concurs with Lifton,
stating he detected evidence of photographic retouching in some Zapruder
frames.

If the CIA indeed tampered with the Zapruder film after the assassination, this piece of evidence-long considered one of the best pieces of
evidence-becomes problematical in understanding what really happened
in Dealey Plaza.

And like so much else in the assassination case, the suppression and
deception surrounding the Zapruder film may eventually reveal more than
the film itself.

Just down the slope of the Grassy Knoll from Zapruder was the Bill
Newman family. They not only noticed Zapruder with his camera, but in
later years, Newman told this author: "At first I thought he shot the
President. "

Bill and Gayle Newman, along with their two young sons, had gone to
Love Field to see Kennedy. But when they didn't get a good view, they
rushed downtown and situated themselves on Elm Street just below the
concrete cupola.

Newman recalled for this author:

We hadn't been there five minutes when the President turned onto Elm
Street. As he was coming straight toward us there was a boom, boom,
real close together. I thought someone was throwing firecrackers. He
got this bewildered look on his face and was sort of slowing moving
back and forth. Then he got nearer to us and, bam, a shot took the right
side of his head off. His ear flew off. I heard Mrs. Kennedy say, "Oh,
my God, no, they shot Jack!" He was knocked violently back against
the seat, almost as if he had been hit by a baseball bat. At that time I
was looking right at the President and I thought the shots were coming
from directly behind us. I said, "That's it! Get on the ground!" The car
momentarily stopped and the driver seemed to have a radio or phone up
to his ear and he seemed to be waiting on some word. Some Secret
Service men reached into their car and came out with some sort of
machine gun. Then the cars roared off. Very soon after this a man asked
us what happened and we told him and he took us to Channel 8
[WFAA-TV] studios.

Newman said some sheriff's deputies were waiting for them after the
TV interview and took them to the Sheriff's Office, where they joined
other Dealey Plaza witnesses who were held for about six hours.

He said that on Sunday, November 24, some FBI agents came to their
home and "took down what we said." That was the last contact the
Newsmans had with federal authorities. He said:

I was a little disappointed that I didn't get called to testify to the Warren
Commission. Someone told me that the reason I wasn't asked to testify
was that I was talking about shots from someplace other than the
Depository building.... I've already been corrected several times that
I was wrong about several things and that there are experts who know
more about it than I do. But it's real hard for me to believe that it was
the act of one lone individual. I've gotten the feeling over the years that
people in Washington know what really happened but it's never been
divulged. But then I have no evidence to that.

Near the Newmans was Cheryl McKinnon, who later became a reporter
for the San Diego Star News. In 1983, she wrote of her experience:

On Nov. 22, 1963, 1 stood, along with hundreds of others, on the
Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, waiting for just one thing-a chance to
see, even just for a moment, that magical person, the President, John F.
Kennedy. . . . As a journalism major in school, my plans were to write
about my experiences as a class project. . . . As we stood watching the
motorcade turn onto Elm Street, I tried to grasp every tiny detail of both
President Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy. "How happy they look," I
thought. Suddenly three shots in rapid succession rang out. Myself and
dozens of others standing nearby turned in horror toward the back of the
Grassy Knoll where it seemed the sounds had originated. Puffs of white
smoke still hung in the air in small patches. But no one was visible. . . . I tried to maintain the faith with my government. I have read
the Warren Commission Report in its entirety and dozens of other books
as well. I am sorry to say that the only thing I am absolutely sure of
today is that at least two of the shots fired that day in Dealey Plaza came
from behind where I stood on the Knoll, not from the book Depository. . . . I have never quite had the same faith and trust in those that
lead us as I did before.

Sitting on the steps leading to the top of the Grassy Knoll at the time of
the assassination was Emmett J. Hudson, one of the groundskeepers of
Dealey Plaza. With Hudson were two other men, neither apparently were
ever identified by the federal investigations. In his Warren Commission
testimony, Hudson recalled:

Well, there was a young fellow, oh, I would judge his age about in his
late twenties. He said he had been looking for a place to park . . . he
finally [had] just taken a place over there in one of them parking lots,
and he came on down there and said he worked over there on Industrial
and me and him both just sat down there on those steps. When the
motorcade turned off of Houston onto Elm, we got up and stood up, me
and him both . . . and so the first shot rung out and, of course, I didn't
realize it was a shot . . . the motorcade had done got further on down
Elm . . . I happened to be looking right at him when that bullet hit
him-the second shot. . . . it looked like it hit him somewhere along
about a little bit behind the ear and a little above the ear [on the
right-hand side of his head] . . . this young fellow that was . . .
standing there with me . . . he says, "Lay down, mister, somebody is
shooting the President." . . . he kept on repeating, "Lay down," so he
was already laying down one way on the sidewalk, so I just laid down
over on the ground and resting my arm on the ground . . . when that third shot rung out . . . you could tell the shot was coming from above
and kind of behind.