by Douglas P. Horne (with Jim Fetzer)
Douglas P. Horne, who served as the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB (formally, The Assassination Records Review Board), a five member civilian panel that was entrusted with the mission of locating and declassifying documents and records held by the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, ONI, and other federal agencies under The JFK Records Act (which was passed by Congress in the wake of the resurgence of interest in the death of JFK, which was brought about by Oliver Stone’s monumental film, “JFK”), has become a personal hero of mine. Those in that category are few and far between, but include JFK, RFK, Mohammed Ali, Bill Russell, and other figures from JFK assassination research, including David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., John P. Costella, Ph.D., and Jack White, who have been among my closest associates and collaborators for more than 20 years.
When I published, Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), I included two chapters by Doug Horne, which concerned certain discoveries that had been made during the proceedings of the ARRB, the first of which concerned the occurrence of two supplemental brain examinations following the Bethesda autopsy on JFK’s body, the first of the original brain, the second of a substitute brian. That the brain shown in diagrams and photographs in the National Archives could not be the brain of JFK had been previously established by Robert B. Livingston, M.D., a world authority on the human brain and expert on wound ballistics, in his contributions to Assassination Science (1998). He had noticed that, while physician after physician from Parkland Hospital, who had examined the body, had reported cerebral and cerebellar tissue extruding from a fist-sized hole in the back of the head, the HSCA artist’s rendering of the autopsy photographs of “JFK’s brain” displayed a completely intact cerebellum and a virtually intact (although dislodged) cerebrum, even though roughly half of President Kennedy’s brains had been blown out in Dealey Plaza during the shooting, where he was hit at least four times: once in the back from behind; once in the throat from in front; and twice in the head, once from behind and once from the right/front, as I have explained in “What happened to JFK–and why it matters today“.
In order to conceal that blow-out at the back of his head, the two authentic lateral cranial x-rays had been altered to conceal the blow-out, which initially appeared to have been done by “patching” using material that was much too dense to be human bone, as David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., discovered through the use of optical densitometry during nine visits to the National Archives. While he would subsequently conclude that the defect had been concealed by means of “light blasting” into that area (thereby removing evidence of a fatal shot from the right/front), JFK’s real brain (which also offered evidence of a shot from the right/front) could not longer be used as evidence, so they effected a substitution. By photographing another brain during a second post-autopsy supplemental brain examination and introducing those photographs into the medical record, they were able to produce autopsy x-rays and photographs that were, at least in general, more consistent with the “official account” of three shots having been fired from above and behind, where two of those shots had hit, one of which would become the “magic” bullet that was supposed to have passed through his neck, the other the shot that purportedly hit the back of his head and killed him.
The other chapter by Horne concerned a crucial briefing board from the NPIC (formally, The National Photographic Interpretation Center), which had been prepared for presentations about the assassination for one or more high-ranking government official(s), probably either J. Edgar Hoover or Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1997, the ARRB staff was aware of only one briefing-board event at the NPIC, but we now know that two films had been brought there on successive evenings: the first was an 8mm, split film that had been developed in Dallas and appears to have been the Zapruder original, which arrived on Saturday; the second was a 16mm, unsplit film that had been developed in Rochester and appears to have been an extensively revised version. These events involved “Zapruder films” in different formats and two groups of NPIC personnel, who were unaware of one another; and led to the preparation of two different briefing boards. There is no room for doubt that the NPIC was dealing here with two different films, which Doug has discussed in his five-volume study, Inside the ARRB (2009), where I summarized some of his most important discussion related to the film in “US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication”. In the remarkable study that follows, Doug expands upon the events at the NPIC that weekend. Those who want to learn more about the film and its fabrication may want to review The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003). In the meanwhile, what we have here is a great place to start.
The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration
by Douglas Horne
Most Americans don’t know anything about the two significant events involving the famous Zapruder film of President Kennedy’s Assassination that took place back-to-back, on successive nights, at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) – in Washington, D.C. – on the weekend immediately following JFK’s assassination. But anyone evenly remotely interested in what is perhaps the key piece of film evidence in the Kennedy assassination – what for decades was viewed as the “bedrock evidence” in the case, the “closest thing to ground truth” – needs to become acquainted with what happened to Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of JFK’s assassination during the three days immediately following President Kennedy’s death. Why? Because the hottest debate raging within the JFK research community for the past several years is about whether the Zapruder film in the National Archives is an authentic film from which sound, scientific conclusions regarding JFK’s assassination can be divined, or whether it is an altered film indicative of a government cover-up, which yields tainted and suspect information, and leads us to false conclusions, about what happened in Dealey Plaza. The resolution of this debate hinges on the answers to two essential questions: First, is the film’s chain of custody immediately after the assassination what it has been purported to be for many years, or is it, in reality, quite different? Second, are there visual indications within the film’s imagery which prove it has been tampered with, i.e., altered? If the film’s chain of custody has been misrepresented for decades, and if the opportunity and means existed that weekend to alter the film, then suspect imagery within the film takes on a crucial new level of importance, and is not simply of academic interest.
This paper will first, and primarily, address questions about the chain of custody of the Zapruder film immediately following President Kennedy’s assassination, for new scholarship teaches us that the actual chain of custody of Abraham Zapruder’s home movie, from November 23rd-25th, 1963, is not anything close to what it was represented to be for years, and in fact indicates an extremely high level of interest in Abraham Zapruder’s home movie by the U.S. government during the three days immediately following President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963. The relatively new chain of custody evidence presented here will not only prove that the camera original Zapruder film was in the custody of the CIA and Secret Service – not LIFE magazine – from late Saturday evening through Monday morning that weekend, but is of such a provocative nature that it strongly suggests – indeed, virtually proves – the original film was altered that weekend, prior to the publication of any of the film’s frames in LIFE magazine, and prior to its use by the Warren Commission. After the startling new facts about the Zapruder film’s actual chain of custody are thoroughly explored, I will summarize briefly some of the key evidence indicating that the film’s imagery has been altered.
Backstory
I served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) during the last 3 years of its 4-year lifespan, from August 1995-September 1998. I was hired as a Senior Analyst on the Military Records Team, and was promoted midway through my tour to the position of Chief Analyst for Military Records. In addition to working with military records on Cuba and Vietnam, I was privileged to work extensively with the JFK medical evidence, and on all issues related to the Zapruder film. Before launching into the story of the two NPIC events with the Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination, and my personal involvement in interviewing all three of the key NPIC witnesses, it’s essential that the reader gain some familiarity with the historical background of the Zapruder film.
Even though Time, Inc. (more commonly referred to in this instance as LIFE magazine) had purchased the Zapruder film on November 25, 1963 (the Monday following JFK’s assassination) for $ 150,000.00, it was never shown publicly by Time, Inc. or LIFE as a motion picture. (Only selected still frames were published by LIFE, from time to time, on special occasions, when the magazine deemed it appropriate.) The Warren Commission staff studied a grainy, second-generation FBI copy of the film for seven days during late January and early February of 1964; again in April of 1964; and viewed the purported original on one day only – February 25, 1964 – when it was brought over by LIFE magazine, at the Commission’s request. On March 6, 1975 a bootleg copy of the Zapruder film was shown on television, for the very first time, by ABC and the host of its program Good Night America, Geraldo Rivera; in the ensuing uproar about the film’s 12-year suppression as a motion picture, Time, Inc. decided to rid itself of the albatross, and sold the film, and all rights, back to Abraham Zapruder’s heirs for one dollar on April 9, 1975. Zapruder’s heirs (the LMH Co.) subsequently placed the film in courtesy storage at the National Archives on June 29, 1978 so that it would be protected in a low temperature (25 degrees Fahrenheit), low humidity environment specifically designed for archival film storage. The legal status of the film became uncertain with the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act on October 26, 1992, since the goal of the “JFK Records Act” was to seek out assassination records and place them in the National Archives, in a permanent new collection.
Zapruder’s heirs failed in their attempt to remove the film from courtesy storage on March 15, 1993, when the Archives decided that the terms of the courtesy storage agreement signed with the LMH Co. on July 10, 1978 were in possible conflict with the requirements of the JFK Records Act – namely, securing assassination records for the American people in a special collection at the National Archives. The impasse was finally resolved on April 24, 1997, when the Review Board formally voted to designate the Zapruder film as an “assassination record,” and to implement a legal “taking” of the film in order to preserve it in perpetuity, for the American people, as part of the JFK Records Collection. The “taking” was to be implemented on August 1, 1998. (The film never left the custody of the National Archives; August 1, 1998 was simply the date the film would be formally transferred from courtesy storage, and officially become part of the JFK Records Collection.) Well after the sunset of the ARRB’s operations at the end of September 1998, a Justice Department binding arbitration panel decided on June 16, 1999 (by a split vote of 2-1) that Abraham Zapruder’s heirs should be given sixteen million dollars in “just compensation” for the taking of the film by the U.S. government, and the U.S. Congress obediently ponied up the money. [1] Strangely – and inappropriately, in view of its windfall profit – the LMH Co. (Zapruder’s heirs) was allowed by the Justice Department to keep the copyright, and all of the legal control over use of the film’s images that comes with the copyright. On December 30, 1999 the LMH Co. contractually transferred the copyright for the Zapruder film, and all of its film holdings (including large format transparencies and various copies of the motion picture film), to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas. [2]
Prior to the implementation of the taking on August 1, 1998, the Review Board – at my recommendation – commissioned a limited authenticity study of the Zapruder film (based primarily on examination of its edge print, the markings and script imposed on the film at the factory where it was produced, and at the developing plant after it was exposed). The ARRB staff first approached the Eastman Kodak Co. for film assistance and advice in 1996, and asked in 1997 if Kodak would perform the Zapruder film study pro bono; Kodak agreed, and hired a noted retired Kodak film chemist, Mr. Roland Zavada, as a paid consultant to perform the one-man study. Mr. Zavada studied the film’s edge print; perceived anomalies in the bleed-over imagery in the intersprocket area of the film; its forensic chain of custody on the day of JFK’s assassination; and educated himself on the basic characteristics of Zapruder’s Bell and Howell movie camera by purchasing several models and experimenting with them – but at our request, he did not study the film’s image content. Zavada’s report was signed out on September 25, 1998, and arrived in Washington, D.C. on September 28th, two days before the ARRB shut down its operations on September 30th.
The Key Witnesses
During the summer of 1997, following the announcement that the film would be “taken” by the government, and while the authenticity study by Kodak was effectively already underway, the ARRB staff became aware that there were two former CIA/NPIC employees who had, in 1963, worked with the Zapruder film at the Agency’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) immediately after JFK’s assassination: their names were Homer A. McMahon (the former Head of the NPIC Color Lab), and Morgan Bennett (“Ben”) Hunter (his assistant at the time). The ARRB staff interviewed each man three times that summer, and I was present at all of those interviews. [3] I was the lead interviewer at the one interview that was recorded on audiotape – this was my questioning of Homer A. McMahon at Archives II, in College Park, Maryland on July 14, 1997. The tape of that interview has been available to the American people through the JFK Records Collection at Archives II since November of 1998; I finally produced a long-overdue verbatim transcript of the interview in May of 2012, which I make available on request to anyone who is interested. ARRB staff interview reports – written summaries – were produced after each interview of these two NPIC employees, and those interview reports are also available to the public in the JFK Records Collection at Archives II. The activity McMahon and Hunter were involved in on the weekend following President Kennedy’s assassination was the making of photographic enlargements from individual frames of the Zapruder film; the purpose of this activity was to support the creation of “briefing boards” that would be assembled by others at NPIC, using the color prints they made, for purposes and audiences unknown. The customer requesting the activity was the U.S. Secret Service. Homer McMahon, following the instructions of a person who identified himself as Secret Service agent “Bill Smith,” presided over this “briefing board event” at NPIC. Unknown to the ARRB staff at the time, this round of interviews with Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter was only the first half of the story of what happened at NPIC the weekend of the assassination. I would not become aware of the second half of the story until 2009, about eleven and one-half years later.
NPIC Panel 1
Then, in February of 2009, I was contacted by JFK researcher Peter Janney of Massachusetts (author of Mary’s Mosaic, 2012), who had just commenced a long series of interviews with a third former NPIC employee who had also participated in an NPIC “briefing board event” the weekend following JFK’s assassination. This witness, who had spoken only briefly and cursorily to a few other JFK assassination researchers, was the prestigious Dino A. Brugioni, who had served as the Chief Information Officer (the “briefing board czar”) at NPIC for about two-and-a-half decades; Mr. Brugioni was, and remains today, the world’s foremost living expert on the U-2 and SR-71 aerial reconnaissance imagery, and on the Corona and early Keyhole satellite reconnaissance imagery; and when first contacted by Peter Janney, was already the author of several books, including Eyeball to Eyeball (an account of aerial reconnaissance during the Cuban Missile Crisis), and Photo Fakery. At Peter’s request, I helped him develop an evolving list of questions for Mr. Brugioni, and also helped him evaluate the answers as they came in following each interview. Peter Janney conducted an exhaustive series of MP3-recorded telephonic interviews of Dino Brugioni throughout the late winter and spring of 2009 (seven interviews altogether, beginning on January 30th and ending on June 27th), [4] and the upshot was that without any doubt whatsoever, Mr. Brugioni presided over a distinctly different “briefing board event” at NPIC the weekend following the assassination, using a distinctly different Zapruder film. Mr. Brugioni, like Mr. McMahon, also presided over the making of enlargements – blowup prints – from individual frames of the Zapruder film, which were then mounted on briefing boards. But his work crew was entirely different than McMahon’s; the numbers of enlargements made differed significantly; the number of briefing boards made was different; and the format of the briefing boards made at Brugioni’s event was distinctly different. Most significantly, the format of the Zapruder film delivered at Brugioni’s NPIC event was distinctly different from the format of the Zapruder film delivered at McMahon’s NPIC event. Yet each man believed, without any doubt, that he was working with the original film. And the two events occurred only one day apart. Mr. Brugioni was contacted again in 2011, and the information that he had previously provided in 2009 was reconfirmed by Peter Janney in an MP3-recorded interview at Mr. Brugioni’s home on April 28, 2011; as well as in a four-hour-long HD video interview conducted by me on July 9, 2011. Mr. Brugioni’s memory remained sharp, and his credibility high – very high. Indeed, his good memory and credibility is recorded for posterity on the HD video recording.
What the two NPIC events point to, the weekend immediately following President Kennedy’s assassination, is a compartmentalized operation, in which the first NPIC work crew (Brugioni’s) made briefing boards, using enlargements of individual frames from the true camera original Zapruder film; and in which the second NPIC work crew (McMahon’s) also made briefing boards, the very next night, using enlargements of frames from an altered Zapruder film, masquerading as the camera original. I characterize the operation as compartmentalized because neither group was aware of the other group’s activity that weekend, nor were they intended to be. At the time, back in 1963, both McMahon and Brugioni were each led to believe they were working with the “original film,” but clearly, only one of them could have been. Fantastic, you say? Certainly. But all true. The evidence will be clearly laid out before you, below, along with an analysis of what the evidence likely means, and why.
Before I present to you a detailed summary of what happened at each of the two NPIC “briefing board events,” let us examine what we thought we knew, before the two NPIC events were made known to us, about the Zapruder film’s chain of custody during the critical four days following JFK’s assassination. This short digression is vital to understanding the significance of the differences between the two versions of the Zapruder film delivered to NPIC the weekend following the assassination.
The Traditionally Understood Zapruder Film Chain of Custody, from Friday, November 22nd, 1963 through Tuesday, November 26th, 1963
Here is the commonly-agreed-to chain of custody for the camera-original Zapruder film, as it was known prior to our new understanding of the implications of the two NPIC events:
Friday, November 22nd:
Zapruder’s home movie of the assassination was developed at the Kodak Plant in Dallas. When developed, it was a 16 mm wide, 25-foot-long “double 8” film, with sprocket holes running along both outside edges, and was unslit. What does this mean? Simply put, as shot in the camera, and then as developed, all “double 8” home movie films consisted of two 8mm wide image strips going in opposite directions, and upside down when compared to each other. The normal practice immediately following developing was for the developing lab to “split,” or slit, the 16 mm wide film in half, vertically, and then join the two sides of the movie (known as the A side and the B side) together with a splice, so that it could be projected in an 8 mm home projector. A “double 8” movie that has been slit only has sprocket holes on one side (the left side), and is 50 feet long (instead of 25). In the case of the Zapruder film, the A side (family scenes) and the B side (the Kennedy assassination) were not initially split, or slit apart, so that Mr. Zapruder could get three copies (contact prints) exposed at another lab (the Jamieson film lab in Dallas), in Mr. Jamieson’s 16 mm contact printer. That is, the 16 mm out-of-camera format (with opposing image strips going in opposite directions) was temporarily preserved on Friday afternoon, so that Zapruder’s film could be copied.
Before departing for the Jamieson lab to have three contact prints exposed, the 16 mm wide, out-of-camera original was viewed once by the Production Supervisor (Mr. Chamberlain) and Mr. Zapruder, on a Kodak 16 mm processing inspection projector, at twice the normal projection speed – to simply ensure that Zapruder had indeed captured the assassination on film. [5]
Following his return from the Jamieson lab with the three exposed contact prints, all three contact prints were developed at the Kodak Plant in Dallas. After the three dupes were found satisfactory, the original film was slit down the middle to 8 mm in width, and the two halves of the movie spliced together, end-to-end (per normal procedure). The original film, now 8mm in width, was viewed at least twice on an 8 mm projector by several laboratory personnel (including Production Supervisor Phil Chamberlain, and Customer Service Manager Dick Blair), Mr. Zapruder, and his attorney. [6] At least one of the three dupes was also viewed, and was noted to have a “softer” focus than the original film (as would be expected).
Zapruder departed Kodak’s Dallas Plant at about 9 PM, and turned over two of the three “first day copies” to the Secret Service. One was sent to Washington, D.C. – to Secret Service Headquarters – by Dallas Secret Service agent Max Phillips, who placed it on a commercial flight late Friday night. It arrived in Washington after midnight, and sometime before dawn, on Saturday, 11/23/63. The second “same day copy” relinquished to the Secret Service by Zapruder on Friday night was loaned by the Secret Service to the FBI in Dallas the next day, on Saturday; and then flown by the Dallas office of the FBI to FBI headquarters, in Washington, on Saturday evening. [7]
Zapruder went home Friday night with the camera-original film, and one of the “first day copies” in his possession. He was contacted on the phone late Friday night by Richard Stolley, LIFE magazine’s Pacific Coast editor out of Los Angeles, and Zapruder agreed to meet with Mr. Stolley and discuss the film’s potential sale the next morning in his office.
We have now accounted for the whereabouts of all three “first day copies” that weekend. However, the primary focus in this paper should remain on the original film. ARRB consultant Roland Zavada’s formal conclusion in his report was this: “After the dupes were found satisfactory, the original film was slit to 8 mm.” [8] There was absolutely no doubt in his mind about this, for he had interviewed the surviving employees from the Kodak Plant in Dallas, and both high level supervisors present that day concurred in this.
Saturday, November 23rd:
Abraham Zapruder met with Secret Service officials and Mr. Stolley of LIFE in his office on Saturday morning, 11/23/63, and projected the original film for them on his 8 mm projector. [9]
He then struck a deal with Richard Stolley, selling to LIFE, for $50,000.00, worldwide print media rights to the assassination movie (but not motion picture rights). Zapruder agreed in this initial contract that he would not exploit the film as a motion picture, himself, until Friday, November 29th. Zapruder immediately relinquished the camera-original film to LIFE for a six day period, and kept in his possession the one remaining “same day copy.” By the terms of this initial contract with LIFE, Zapruder was to have the original film returned to him by LIFE on or about November 29th, and in exchange he was then to give LIFE the remaining first day copy. [10]
Richard Stolley immediately put the film on a commercial flight bound for Chicago, where LIFE’s principal printing plant was located. [11] The presses for the November 29th edition had been stopped on Friday, the day of the assassination, and the plan was to make major use of the imagery from Zapruder’s film as the issue was reconfigured.
NPIC Panel II
Now, here is the doubtful part of the chain of custody story that will require modification after we study the two NPIC events the weekend of the assassination: the traditional belief, for decades, was that the original Zapruder film remained with LIFE in Chicago from early Saturday evening, until Tuesday, November 26th, when the first issues of the reconfigured November 29th issue began to appear on local newsstands. The principal reference supporting this traditional view of the Zapruder film’s chain of custody, from Saturday through Tuesday, has been pgs. 311-318 of Loudon Wainwright’s 1986 memoir, titled The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of LIFE. In his book, Wainwright recounts hearsay passed along to him from others at LIFE about how the film was processed in Chicago – who was on the team that prepared the use of blowups from the film, how they worked on the layout, etc. [12] The magazine was actually printed at Chicago’s R. R. Donnelly and Company printing plant; prior to the actual layout and graphics work at the printing plant, numerous 8 x 10 inch prints were run off at a separate Chicago photo lab. [13] We shall further discuss the activities in Chicago, and what was actually published in the November 29th issue, toward the end of this article. The only part of the Chicago story that is subject to doubt is the exact timing of when the LIFE editorial and technical team actually performed its layout of the Zapruder frames for the November 29th issue: was it actually Saturday night, or was it really Sunday night, or perhaps even early Monday morning before dawn?
Sunday, November 24th:
On Sunday evening, Richard Stolley, on behalf of LIFE, approached Abraham Zapruder on the phone and requested that they meet to negotiate LIFE’s acquisition of additional rights to the film. “Something” had happened that caused the magazine to seek all rights to the film, including motion picture rights, and outright ownership of both the original film, and all copies. These additional rights would prove extremely expensive to Time, Inc., LIFE magazine’s parent company.
Monday, November 25th:
After the conclusion of President Kennedy’s funeral on Monday – the funeral ended at about 2 PM Dallas time (CST), with Air Force One flying over the gravesite at 2:54 PM EST, and with the former First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, lighting the eternal flame at 3:13 PM EST – Stolley, Zapruder, and his attorney for this purpose, Sam Passman, met to renegotiate the sale contract for the film. Earlier that day, LIFE’s publisher, C.D. Jackson, had relayed to Stolley the formal approval of the Board of Time, Inc. for him to renegotiate the contract. [14]
For a renegotiated total price of $150,000.00 ($100,000.00 more than the original contract signed on Saturday), Time, Inc. now gained all rights to the Zapruder film’s imagery (domestic and foreign; and newsreel, television, and motion picture); and permanent ownership of the original and all three copies of the “8 mm color films,” thus erasing any doubt that the original and the copies had been slit to 8 mm on Friday. In addition, the new contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would pay to Zapruder an amount equal to one half of all gross receipts for use of the film, above and beyond the new $150,000.00 sale price. (The contract stipulated that Time, Inc. would also own the two “first-day copies” that Zapruder had loaned to the Secret Service, once they were returned; they never were returned.) [15]
Tuesday, November 26th: The first newsstand copies of the November 29th issue of LIFE began to trickle out; the issue displayed a total of 31 fuzzy, poor resolution, black-and-white images of blowups from individual frames of the film. [16] Twenty-eight of them were quite small; two were medium sized; and one was a large format reproduction. What is hard to understand, in retrospect, is why LIFE magazine published such muddy, indistinct images of a film that its parent company, Time Inc., had spent an additional $100,000.00 to repurchase. We will revisit this question following our examination of the two NPIC “briefing board events,” below.
NPIC EVENT # 1 (Presided over by Dino Brugioni)
The summary below recapitulates information gleaned from the seven recorded (MP3) Peter Janney-Dino Brugioni interviews in 2009; an eighth recorded (MP3) Peter Janney-Dino Brugioni interview on April 28, 2011; and my own HD video interview of Mr. Brugioni on July 9, 2011.
Time and date: This event commenced about 10 PM, EST, on Saturday evening, 11/23/63, when two Secret Service officials (estimated to be in their late 30s or early 40s) brought an 8 mm home movie of the JFK assassination to the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, located in building 213 in the Washington Navy Yard. (At no time could Mr. Brugioni recall either of their names.) They had not yet seen the film themselves, and Mr. Brugioni is of the distinct impression that they had just gotten off of an airplane and had come directly to NPIC from the airport. They did not volunteer where they had come from, or where the film had come from. The event at NPIC went on all night long, until about dawn on Sunday, November 24th. [Note: The home movie of the assassination brought to NPIC by the two Secret Service officials was not copied as a motion picture that night; nor did NPIC even have the capability to do so.]
How notified: Dino Brugioni was the Duty Officer at NPIC that weekend, and was personally notified about the impending visit by NPIC’s Director, the legendary Arthur C. Lundahl. Lundahl, in turn, had been notified by CIA Director John McCone that the Secret Service would be bringing in a film, and would require NPIC’s assistance.
Work crew called in (and not called in): Mr. Brugioni personally notified and called in, as his primary assistants, Mr. Bill Banfield (the Head of the Photography and the Graphics Departments), and Ralph Pearse, the Lead Photogrammatrist at NPIC. Bill Banfield had in turn ordered in 3 or 4 photo technicians, and 2 or 3 people from the graphics department, to assist in the work that evening. During the course of several interviews, Mr. Brugioni was asked whether any of the following people were present, and he emphatically stated that they were not: neither Captain Pierre Sands, U.S. Navy; Homer A McMahon; nor Morgan Bennett (“Ben”) Hunter was present that night, according to Mr. Brugioni. He was quite certain, and unequivocal, about this. When asked if he had sighted, and knew, the photography and graphics technicians assisting the management team that night, he affirmed that he had indeed seen them that night, and that none of them were either Homer McMahon, or Ben Hunter. (Brugioni knew both men, and knew Ben Hunter particularly well.)
Format of film delivered: Mr. Brugioni clearly recalls that the film delivered was an 8 mm film. He is positive about this because one member of his team had to go out that night and, through special arrangement, purchase a brand-new 8 mm projector, so that the film could be viewed as a motion picture. [NPIC had a state-of-the-art 16 mm projector installed in its briefing room, but had no 8 mm movie projectors.] He clearly recalls that the film strip only had sprocket holes down one side, which is consistent with a slit, 8mm wide “double 8” film. He is also positive in his own mind that it was the original film, and not a copy. Mr. Brugioni personally owned an 8 mm “double 8” camera in 1963, and was familiar with the differences in quality between an original film and a copy film. He recalls that the images on the film were extremely sharp. Furthermore, the extreme nervousness and anxiety demonstrated by the two Secret Service officials convinced him that he had the original film, since they were terrified he would damage it when projecting it. All factors he observed, Brugioni insists, pointed to the film being the camera-original.
The Secret Service Couriers – the Customer: The two Secret Service officials, after examining the film at least 4 or 5 times as a motion picture, wanted it timed with a stopwatch, to gain an appreciation of time between perceived shots. They were warned by the NPIC personnel that this would not yield precise or reliable results, since the Bell and Howell movie camera used was a spring-wound camera, and hence its frame rate, or running speed, would have varied throughout the filming of the assassination. The customer persisted in this desire, however, and therefore the NPIC crew complied. After viewing the film as a motion picture several times, the Secret Service officials requested that specific frames be enlarged and blown-up as photographic prints, and that the prints be mounted on briefing boards. The two segments of the film they focused on were the limousine on Elm Street as it went behind, and emerged from behind, the Stemmons Freeway sign; and the head shot. Mr. Brugioni could not remember any specific conclusions reached that night as to the number of shots fired, but he says the agents came with no pre-conceptions about this, for they had not yet seen the film.
NPIC Panel III
Briefing Boards created: After the customer selected individual frames to be enlarged and printed, the NPIC work crew made internegatives of each of those frames using a precision, high-quality enlarger, and then made two photographic prints from each internegative. Between 12 and 15 frames on the home movie, total, were selected for enlargement, and two small prints, about 4 x 5 inches in size, were printed from each internegative. Using these prints, two sets of briefing boards were made at NPIC, one for the customer (the Secret Service), and one for CIA Director John McCone. (It was standard procedure for the CIA Director to receive duplicates of briefing boards made for other customers within the Federal government.) The two briefing board panels that constituted each set were 22 x 20 inches in size, and joined by a plastic hinge in the middle, that allowed each briefing board set to be folded in half for easier transportation; thus, the overall size of each briefing board set was 44 inches wide from left to right, and 20 inches tall. (Mr. Brugioni had originally estimated in 2009 that the conjoined, two panel briefing boards were each about 6 feet wide by 3 feet tall; but prior to the 2011 HD video interview, he had refreshed his recollection by examining old photos of NPIC staff members holding standard briefing boards used at NPIC; and in July of 2011, he more accurately recalled that the standard size of each pre-cut briefing board was 22 x 20 inches – and modified his answers accordingly.) The only textual information that Mr. Brugioni recalls being posted on each briefing board set was: (1) the magnification factor, listed at the top of each panel; and (2) the frame number of each print, displayed above each print. [In 2009, Brugioni recalled the frame numbers being posted below each print.]
Accompanying Textual Material: Mr. Brugioni personally prepared and typed a one page set of notes for Mr. Arthur Lundahl, NPIC’s Director, to use when delivering the two sets of briefing boards to CIA Director McCone, and briefing him, on Sunday morning. The set of notes contained the names of all the NPIC people involved; the NPIC’s admonition against using a stopwatch to time shots depicted on a film shot with a spring-wound camera; and other technical information about how the briefing boards were prepared. Two sets of notes were prepared, one to go with each briefing board.
The departure of the Secret Service officials: The two Secret Service officials departed at about 3 AM on Sunday morning, or 4 AM at the latest, as soon as they had seen what one of the blowup enlargement prints looked like, and were satisfied with its quality and resolution. They departed without the briefing boards, for the boards were not even close to being completed when they departed. The only textual material the two officials took with them was a list they had requested of Brugioni, listing the names of all of the NPIC employees involved in the briefing board event. The two Secret Service officials took the film with them, and departed without saying where they were going.
Mr. Lundahl’s role on Sunday: Brugioni notified Mr. Lundahl by phone about 7 AM on Sunday morning that the work was finished, and Mr. Lundahl arrived at NPIC at about 8 AM to pick up the two sets of briefing boards; the two sets of briefing notes; and deliver them to Director McCone. Lundahl briefed McCone on Sunday morning, November 24, 1963. It would be up to McCone, as per standard procedure, to deliver one set of briefing boards and one set of briefing notes to the customer. Mr. Brugioni assumes that John McCone personally delivered one briefing board set and one set of notes to the Secret Service.
End of the event: Mr. Brugioni went home shortly after Mr. Lundahl departed to deliver the two briefing board sets to Mr. McCone, and was never notified again that weekend about any other activity at NPIC, of any kind. He said that if there had been additional activity, as Duty Officer that entire weekend (including Monday, the day of President Kennedy’s funeral), he should have been the person notified.
Briefing Boards placed in the National Archives by the CIA in 1993 are not the briefing boards prepared by Dino Brugioni’s team: In 1993, the CIA’s Historical Review Group (HRG), as required by the JFK Records Act, deposited with the National Archives one set of briefing boards identified in 1975 at NPIC – a four panel set (four loose panels, not joined to each other in any way) – mounting frame enlargements of the Zapruder film. In both 2009 and 2011, Mr. Brugioni was shown good photographs of each of these four briefing board panels (which together constitute one set) and he consistently and emphatically denied that the four panels in the JFK Records Collection (in Flat 90A) are the ones he made in 1963. His reasons were as follows: first, the frame numbers his group placed above each print, and the magnification factor his group placed at the top of each board, are not present; second, this briefing board set consists of four loose panels, not two conjoined panels; third, the four panels together contain 28 prints, not the 12 to 15 prints he recalls making for his briefing boards; fourth, each panel in the Archives is labeled “Panel I, Panel II, Panel III, and Panel IV,” which is not what was done on his briefing boards, where there were no identifying numbers placed on each panel; and fifth, the four briefing board panels at the Archives contain different information, and a different layout, than placed on his briefing boards.
Working notes associated with the four briefing board panels at the Archives were not produced by Mr. Brugioni’s team at his event: There are five (5) pages of NPIC working notes (also identified in 1975) stored with the four briefing board panels at the National Archives, in Flat 90A; one is a half-sheet of yellow legal pad paper with writing on both sides; one page is a typewritten summary of the prints (by frame number) on each of the four briefing board panels; and the three other pages consist of a shot and timing analysis of shots that may have hit President Kennedy and Governor Connally (three possible scenarios), keyed to frame numbers and taking into account the amount of time between postulated shots in each scenario. [The first of the three scenarios is the one written about in the December 6, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine.] Mr. Brugioni, in both 2009, and again in 2011, denied having anything to do with these notes, and said he had not ever seen them until 2009, when Peter Janney first showed them to him. He furthermore volunteered that his group would not have had the time to conduct such a shot and timing analysis at the event he presided over, commencing late on 11/23/63, so busy were they simply counting frames, making internegatives, printing photographic enlargements, and creating the two briefing boards from the photographic prints.
A startling revelation in 2011 – the “head explosion” seen in the extant Zapruder film, in the National Archives today, is not at all consistent with the head explosion seen by Mr. Brugioni in the Zapruder film he viewed on the evening of November 23, 1963: During the follow-up interview at Dino Brugioni’s home on April 28, 2011, Peter Janney showed Mr. Brugioni a good image of frame 313 from the extant Zapruder film – the so-called “head explosion” – scanned from a 35 mm dupe negative of the film obtained from the National Archives. [The provenance of the frame used therefore unquestionably represents what is in the National Archives today.] Mr. Brugioni was quite startled to find out that this was the only frame graphically depicting the “head explosion” in the extant film, which the National Archives has characterized as “the original film.” He insisted that the head explosion he viewed multiple times on 11/23/63 was of such a great size, and duration (in terms of time), that there should be many more frames depicting that explosion than “just the one frame” (frame 313), as shown in the Zapruder film today. Furthermore, he said the “head explosion” depicted in the Zapruder film today is too small in size, and too low in the frame, to be the same graphic depiction he recalls witnessing in the Zapruder film on Saturday, November 23rd, 1963 at NPIC. Mr. Brugioni viewed the Zapruder film as a motion picture several times during the HD video interview I conducted with him on July 9, 2011 – using the 1998 MPI DVD product, Image of an Assassination, made by the LMH Co. in 1997 from the film in the National Archives – and reiterated those comments that he made on April 28th to Peter Janney, insisting that “something was missing” from the film in the National Archives today. While viewing the video on July 9, 2011, Mr. Brugioni also stated that the head explosion he viewed was a large “white cloud” that surrounded President Kennedy’s head, and was not pink or red, as shown in the extant Zapruder film. The words below are excerpted from Dino Brugioni’s April 28, 2011 interview with Peter Janney, as he recounted what he recalled seeing when he watched the head explosion in the Zapruder film on 11/23/63:
“…I remember all of us being shocked…it was straight up [gesturing high above his own head]…in the sky…There should have been more than one frame…I thought the spray was, say, three or four feet from his head…what I saw was more than that [than frame 313 in today’s film]…it wasn’t low [as in frame 313], it was high…there was more than that in the original…It was way high off of his head…and I can’t imagine that there would only be one frame. What I saw was more than you have there [in frame 313].” [17] [emphasis as spoken]
In repeatedly viewing the Zapruder film as a motion picture during his July 2011 video interview, Dino Brugioni definitively confirmed that it was indeed the Zapruder film he was working with at NPIC on 11/23/63, even though the Secret Service couriers did not refer to it by that name; they simply referred to it as a “home movie.” But Brugioni confirmed