Fetzer - The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK

The Great

Zapruder Film Hoax

Also by James H. Fetzer

Author

Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration

Artificial Intelligence: Its Scope and Limits

Philosophy and Cognitive Science

Computers and Cognition

Philosophy of Science

Co-Author

Glossary of Epistemology/Philosophy of Science

Glossary of Cognitive Science

Editor

Foundations of Philosophy of Science: Recent Developments

Principles of Philosophical Reasoning

Science, Explanation, and Rationality

The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel

Aspects of Artificial Intelligence

Sociobiology and Epistemology

Epistemology and Cognition

Probability and Causality

Consciousness Evolving

Murder in Dealey Plaza

Assassination Science

Co-Editor

Program Verification: Fundamental Issues in Computer Science

Philosophy, Language, and Artificial Intelligence

Philosophy, Mind, and Cognitive Inquiry

The New Theory of Reference

Definitions and Definability

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Front cover drawn from Jack Whites color-photo section in Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000) with frame 335 of the fake Zapruder film. Back cover photograph of the editor by Janice E. Fetzer.

2003 by James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.

First printing 2003

Second printing 2004 (corrected and updated)

Third printing 2005 (with corrections)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Catfeet Press, an imprint of Open Court, a division of Carus Publishing Company, 315 Fifth Street, P.O. Box 300, Peru, Illinois 61354-0300.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Great Zapruder film hoax : deceit and deception in the death of JFK / edited by James H. Fetzer.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-8126-9866-4

1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963Assassination. 2. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963In motion pictures. 3. Zapruder, Abraham. 4. Amateur filmsTexasDallasHistory20th Century. 5. Amateur filmsForgeriesUnited StatesHistory20th Century. 6. Impostors and impostureUnited StatesHistory20th Century. I. Fetzer, James H., 1940

E842.9.G67 2003

364.152'40973'09046dc22

2003055736

Jack White

for showing the way

The most dangerous and vicious of all forgeries are those

committed on behalf of a causethe cause of a nation,

of an institution, or of a leaderand intended

to bring about a permanent falsification of history.

Allan Nevins, author of the Foreword to

John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (1956)

CONTENTS

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.

James H. Fetzer and Scott A. Lederer (featuring the Costella Combined Cut)

Jack White

David Healy

John Costella, Ph.D.

Jack White

John Costella, Ph.D.

David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

David Lifton

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.

Appendices

George Costello

Roland Zavada

Douglas P. Horne

Noel Twyman

Rich DellaRosa

Josiah Thompson, Ph.D.

Gary Mack

David Lifton

John P. Costella, Ph.D.

... we always kept coming back to New York to study the Zapruder film [which was then in the possession of Life]the single most important piece of evidence. Quite obviously, the Zapruder footage contained the nearest thing to absolute truth about the sequence of events in Dealey Plaza.

Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas (1967)

Perhaps no greater debate has raged in the history of the study of the death of JFK than has arisen over the authenticity of a 27-second home movie of the assassination, known as the Zapruder film. According to Abraham Zapruder, a local businessman from Dallas, after whom it has been named, he used a fully-wound, spring-loaded, hand-held Bell & Howell camera to film the Presidential motorcade as it passed through Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963. (See his statement below.) This footage has been described as the most significant amateur recording of a news event in history.

Some students of the crime take it as the absolute foundation for understanding what actually transpired. Others are not so sure. Questions have been raised about virtually every aspect of the film and its contents, including inconsistencies between eyewitness reports and the contents of the film, differences between the alleged camera original and other copies, discrepancies between the film and other photographs and films, and a host of other issues, even extending to whether Zapruder really took the film that bears his name. And there are good reasons to ask.

The Zapruder film is a piece of a rather large and complex puzzle over the true causes of the death of Jack Kennedy. According to the official account, a lone gunman named Lee Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with an obscure Italian World War II-vintage Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm carbine and scored two hits, with one miss, as the following photograph displays. Abraham Zapruder was standing on a 4-foot concrete pedestal at the location shown below, which gave him a comprehensive view of the plaza and a suitable position for taking his film, even though a freeway road sign would partially block his view.

Newsweek (22 November 1993) with the location of Abraham Zapruder identified

According to this depiction, the first shot hit the branch of a tree and was deflected to the west, where it struck a curb and injured a distant bystander. The second allegedly struck Jack at the base of the back of the neck, transited his neck without hitting any bony structures and exited just above his tie, then hit Governor John Connally near his right armpit, shattering a rib and exiting his chest, then impacting with his right wrist and being deflected into his left thigh. The Warren Commision also claims that this bullet was foundin virtually pristine conditionon a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, and it has come to be known as the magic bullet (the Prologue). The third shot hit Jack in the head and killed him.