Almost everyone in the JFK assassination research community is tense for the 50th anniversary nearing for the JFK assassination and too many issues remain concealed and some issues over dramatized into the over the top conspiracy themes. One of these issues is the reports that appeared to have started off with Jack White and Jim Fetzer, as some of the most vocal of the JFK Conspiracy Community. In my opinion, It presents with too much over the top embellishments of the JFK witnesses and autopsy data that has made matters worse rather than helped to expose the best analysis insights.
Some make big money out of these over the top conspiracy games with book writing about the misfortunes of a dead man, and it appears the bigger the embellishment of the simple issues the greater the book sales. Many are not interested in polishing up the next big embellishment for the JFK assassination for book sales, we just look at the simple issues that are reasonably evident from the available knowledge.
One of the most important visual accounts for the JFK assassination is the Zapruder Film. It contains visual and timing data critical to solving the JFK assassination’s gunfire damage and source directions. Some want to dismiss this important Icon that shows Americans the real horror of that day in Dallas, but this film is too important to discredit. Many, for various reasons, insist on saying the Zapruder Film is all faked want this horrible image out of the public’s minds. Dallas really wants this image to be discredited, so the public doesn’t think they are the “City of Hate” that killed a Genuinely Good US President. Yet, captured in the Zapruder Film is the fine details for the head shots coming from two directions, one from Dal-Tex and one off Grassy Knoll area, and each causing separate damage to JFK skull that is detectable in fine analysis of the film.
Below is a link to a recent example for the words of Jim Fetzer in his attempts to tell of an extreme conspiracy, where the claims go so far as to tell the Zapruder Film was never made that day, and that all the other films that support the Zapruder Film’s camera’s eye are also faked. Not only that, but the very still photos that also support the Zapruder Camera’s eye have also been faked. This is the prime example of the over the top style conspiracy theory that attracts much attention and sells books, but does it help the findings of what actually occured?
To further demonstrate, Take of look at this Editorial on the “Veterans Today” pages that present some of these claims of Jim Fetzer on the issue that the Zapruder Film was faked.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Zapruder Film was of interest to the FBI for the first day and the FBI had a number of copies made and returned the original to Zapruder. Subsequently, Zapruder sold the film to Life Magazine the next day, and the Life Magazine removed a number of frames of the film to publish the photos of JFK’s brains being blow out by shooters in Dallas. So, there never was a chain of custody on the Zapruder Film other than for the first day to gain some copies. Another thing to keep in mind is that LIFE Mag was set to ruin LBJ with a huge expose of his criminal doings, and the Zapruder Film was used to pre-empt that report that would have ruined LBJ for life. With Life Mag publishing the worst images of the JFK assassination, it would do little good for the FBI or anyone to attempt to fake the film. Plus, that film was needed for a higher purpose and that was to save LBJ’s rear end from being exposed as a crook.
The FBI also went after at least two other films made of the JFK assassination that day and these tell more of the tale for the FBI not acting in the best interest of crime solving. The FBI kept the orginals of these two other films and one film was projector burned around the time the camera caught the Dal-Tex Building and the time for the first shot at JFK that caused some sparks and visual effects. The second film the FBI had has frames removed and the film spliced back together at this same critical time when the first shot appears and has the Dal-Tex building well in view. Unfortunately, the angle Zapruder had did not include a view of the Dal-Tex building and the FBI didn’t have need to cut or destroy that critical time on Zapruder’s Film. It is important to note the FBI could have kept the Zapruder Film and order it into the evidence chain, but they didn’t because of a more pressing need for the film to save LBJ’s rear end.
Some witnesses claim the JFK Limo stopped, but three films show there was no stop of JFK’s limo. The motorcade likely did come to a halt several cars behind the JFK Limo due to the Secret Service Agent needing to jump onto the JFK Limo via running, and a chain reaction pile up and the more rear cars being close to the shot did stop. Certainly, photos show Secret Service Car doors opening behing the LBJ Limo and that car would stop to let agents hit the ground. There is no good evidence to support the JFK Limo Stopped, it slowed seriously below the required speeds and slow enough to allow an SS agent to run to the moving rear step on the bumper of the JFK limo. Yet, the over the top conspiracy theory games contend from the words of one witness that the JFK Limo fully stopped.
It gets worse with running off into more wrong areas and conspiracy embellishments. When the JFK Limo gets to the Parkland Hospital, one of the Hospital’s Orderly folks helped lift JFK out of the Limo and he reported that the rear of JFK was soft and mushy, but he didn’t ever say that the rear of JFK’s head was blasted away. Yet, the over the top conspiracy games maintain that a drawing done by a hospital doctor shows the rear of JFK head and scalp were blasted out, and the Zapruder Film has to be faked because it does not show this huge blast out scalp on the rear of JFK’s head.
A careful analysis of the Zapruder Film shows what really happens. One can apply some simple physics to the film, as Dr. Richard Feinman did, in his study of the film and find there are two bullets that hit JFK’s head in close succession. The film shows the movement of JFK head to the front and then to the rear from these two separate impacts on his head. The first JFK head shot comes in low from a Dal-Tex building window and hit his head near the cow-lick area of his scalp and pops off the temple bone flap. The second shot happens very close behind this, coming from JFK’s right and hits him in the temple area and blows open the top of his skull and causes the 7 inch skull defect. This causes Jackie to jump up and move to the trunk of the Limo. The first bullet rips open the bone and skin of JFK’s right temple area, and the second comes along and rips the top of the scalp even more and exposes the top of his skull. This 2nd bullet effect expelled lots of material toward the motor cycle cop riding to the rear of the driver’s side of the Limo.
As far as the Zapruder Camera, these cameras have around a 1/60 second shutter speed and run at 24 frames per second. So, each second the camera sees only 24/60’s of a second of vision. This means that high speed ejected materials won’t show up if it happened when the camera’s shutter was closed. The only reason the camera caught the first shot was a lot of blood spray was aerosoled and lingered and few frames on the film. Zapruder’s camera is not like the human eye that might well see these particles in flight, due to the shutter keeping the film blind much of the time.
The Zapruder Film did catch something extremely important and that was a large bulge at the rear of JFK’s head that pooched out his scalp at the rear of his head. The energy of the second shot forced blood, brain mush, and some bone under the scalp of JFK head at the rear. This happened totally separate of the temple flap being blown out. This was the mushy soft area that the Parkland Orderly felt when he lifted JFK out of the car and didn’t report any huge blasted out hole that he poked his hand into while lifting JFK.
Then we can get into the Parkland Doctor’s drawings. When JFK was brought into the Emergency Room, this bulge area would be there and suggest there was massive damage to the rear of JFK’s skull. The massive bleeding and brain material from the huge defect on the top of JFK’s head and the right temple would make a massive external mess at the rear of JFK’s head, in his hair. The Brain and Blood mush under the scalp would lead a doctor to assume that there was a blasted out area of the skull under the mush, but the scalp only captured the mush from the high massive defect wound at the top of the skull. This would explain what the doctor drew and why there is a claim to a blasted out area at the lower rear of JFK’s skull. Thus, it appears this lack of detail is exploited by folks like Jim Fetzer to overly complicate and confuse the issues of the JFK head damage. imho
JFK’s head damage was so bloody that his head was wrapped in a sheet to put in the casket for AF-1 flight to Maryland. There, the autopsy sought much more detail than was visible to the doctors in Dallas. Here the blood was washed from JFK’s scalp area, the 7 inch long defect at the top of the skull explored, and the right side flap explored. One can see the autopsy doctor having to pull the scalp back into place at the top of JFK’s head from the massive rip from the right temple across the top of JFK’s head. This makes the rear of the skull bullet hole visible near JFK’s cow-lick. If one looks really closely at the X-rays there is a half moon bullet entrance wound seen in the bone at the right temple area of JFK’s head that was the one coming off the grassy knoll that splattered the motot cycle cop.
The autopsys X-ray photos are genuine and show the bone damage well and the right temple damage and the 7 inch top of the skull defects. They don’t show any damage to the skull bone where the mush filled under the scalp of JFK’s head from the material forced to the rear from the right front shot. Neither does the Hospital Orderly tell of a massive blasted out hole there, only reporting a soft mushy area that is consistent with the material being seen blasted under the scalp of JFK’s head shown in the Zapruder Film. So, this makes the Zapruder Film essential toward gaining the fine details and exposes the real story was not one of a lone gunman in the Texas School Book Depository. The real story is one of a Dal-Tex shooter from the rear, and of a Grassy Knoll area shooter from JFK’s right front that produced this mush of brain and blood under the rear scalp area and which is being exploited by over the top conspiracy theorists that cause more problems than serious contributions toward what happened and what the photo forensics show in the Zapruder Film.
At this point it becomes most important to correctly value the Zapruder Film’s fine details and toss these over the top conspiracy issues into the trash bin of those that exploit outlandish theory, which does more harm to the public’s rights to know than good. In my humble opinion, these attempts to dismiss this important film need to be dismissed as extreme non-sense to keep the public mind confused and continue the JFK conspiracy exploitation another 50 years. Help make this 50th anniversary one that sets the record straight.