Z-film: Red Frame, White Light

Essay excerpted from my book, The Deep State in the Heart of Texas

Red frame/white light. There is a black lead To a dial phone. Red frame/white light. Six three two Three double-o three. — Red Frame/White Light, by Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Zapruder film frame 227 (Z227), showing an apparent motion blur, is a composite; a false photo created by combining one or more true photos (Daryll Weatherly, “A New Look at ‘the film of the Century,’” appendix to Livingstone’s Killing Kennedy and the Hoax of the Century). Luis Alvarez noted that in Z227, “All the innumerable pointlike highlights on the irregular shiny surface of the automobile were stretched out into parallel line segments, along the ‘8 o’clock-2 o’clock’ direction.”

He called this “a striking phenomenon in frame 227 (when compared with 228).” (American Journal of Physics, Sept., 1976, Vol. 44, #9, 813-827); Josiah Thompson noted that “The Z227 blur (singled out by CBS as caused by the shot that supposedly struck both Connally and Kennedy is clearly not caused by the movement of a camera, since, although the foreground automobile is blurred, the background is in focus.” (Six Seconds in Dallas, 1967, 1976, revised, p. 375.)

Photogrammetry allows only four types of natural images here: (1) When the camera follows a moving car, the car is in focus while the background and foreground are streaked. (2) When the camera is still, the background and foreground are in focus while the highlights on the car produce light streaks along the direction of the car's movement. (3) When the camera “jiggles,” both the highlights on the car and the background and foreground are streaked and blurred. (4) When the camera, car, background and foreground are still or nearly so, everything is in focus. The motorcade, relative to Zapruder, was not moving in an “8 o'clock-2 o'clock” direction. Therefore, the motorcade in Z227 was copied from an example of image type 3 and superimposed into a scene from an example of image types 2 or 4.

Reliable eyewitness accounts of those who saw the shooting and those who saw unaltered copies of the Zapurder film support this scientific conclusion and explain the reason for the forgery. First, there is “Shaneyfelt’s Folly.” It is the portion of FBI photographic expert Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt’s testimony about the motion blur (Z227) at the climax of a very unnatural movement during which Connally appears to be swatting a fly with his hat.

Six weeks before Abraham Zapurder testified to the Commission, Shaneyfelt, whose job it was to do an expert, detailed study of the film, exposed the forgery by describing this Connally sequence in two different ways: first as we see it today, then as it appeared in Zapruder’s unaltered film.

Shaneyfelt’s folly reveals that frames after Z222 were removed, leaving the current illusion:

“Mr. SHANEYFELT. I might say that as — in the motion picture — as the car comes out from behind the signboard, the Governor is turned slightly to his right in this manner. This would be in the first frame, in frame 222, he is turned just slightly to his right, and from there on he turns almost square, straight on with the car momentarily, and there is a jerking motion there at one point in the film about there, at which time he starts to turn this way and continues to turn.

“Mr. DULLES. Jerky motion in Connally in the film.

“Mr. SHANEYFELT. There is — it may be merely where he stopped turning and started turning this way. It is hard to analyze.

“Mr. DULLES. What I wanted to get at — whether it was Connally who made the jerky motion or there was something in the film that was jerky. You can't tell.

“Mr. SHANEYFELT. You can't tell that.

“Mr. McCLOY. Certainly the film is jerky at that point. I mean there is a big blur.

“Representative FORD. The President’s only reaction is a motion to his throat or to his neck with his hands.

“Mr. SHANEYFELT. That is correct.

“Representative FORD. Whereas Governor Connally actually turns his body rather sharply?

“Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; he turns as they go behind the signboard, he turns this way and he is turning a little bit this way and as he comes out of the signboard he is facing slightly to the right, comes around straight on and then he turns to his left straight on and then turns to his right, continues to turn around and falls over in Mrs. Connally’s lap." (5H 155-156)

It is during this missing turn to the left, with Connally’s back facing the grassy knoll, that the bullet entered his back. The bullet strike was removed leaving the “jerking motion” at Z227.

From his hospital bed on November 27, 1963, Connally said, “We heard a shot. I turned to my left — I was sitting in the jump seat — I turned to my left to look in the back seat. The President had slumped. He had said nothing. Almost simultaneously, as I turned I was hit.” A taped press conference shows an unidentified hospital spokesman with Dr. Shaw telling how both Connally and his wife agreed he turned to his left, and that had he not done so, he would have been struck in the heart. (The Two Kennedys documentary film, Italy, M.P.I., Maljack Productions, Inc.) [https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx38TL0ZRZlUeM8ezOBQ7ogVs1W7XUFHaQ] But when the PBS TV series NOVA used Connally's bedside interview for their 1988 broadcast, Who Shot President Kennedy? they carefully edited out his references to the left turn: “We heard a shot. I turned [camera cuts to scene of men taking notes] to look in the [camera cuts back to Connally] back seat. The president had slumped. He had said nothing. Almost simultaneously, as I turned I was hit.” [https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1Bnyv-ABGgCWiqWhIvpNGJtNRZIROGnj] S.M. Holland said, “...the President slumped over, and Governor Connally made his turn to the right and then back to the left and that's when the second shot was fired.” (Rush to Judgment documentary film, Mark Lane) [https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxrKd5doXnE-GmkKyZH5a3DT7HsS7dQ5WP]

Motorcycle policeman Douglas L. Jackson, at the right rear side of the limousine, said, “Mr. Connally was looking back toward me” when the bullet struck. (Killing Kennedy, p. 144)

By the time Dan Rather saw the Zapruder film, he was convinced that all shots had come from the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). Describing the film on Monday, November 25, he said, “...as he turned he exposed his entire shirt front and chest because his coat was unbuttoned...at that moment a shot very clearly hit the part of the Governor. He was wounded once with a chest shot, this we now know...” And later that day Rather added, “The Governor’s coat was open. He, he reached back in this fashion, back as if to, to offer aid or ask the president something. At that moment, a shot clearly hit the Governor, in the front, and he fell back in his seat.” (Trask, Pictures of the Pain, pp. 87, 89)¹

Abraham Zapruder never saw his original film after Saturday, November 23, 1963. He only saw it at full speed and never really studied it. The closest he ever came to actually studying the film was on July 22, 1964, when he viewed enlarged prints of individual frames assembled into a book (CE 885) during his Warren Commission testimony. This was primarily to identify them as being from his film. His testimony strongly indicates that had he studied his film more closely he would have been skeptical enough to discover the alteration he never imagined.² The 15³ frames he saw and the order in which he saw them were 185, 186, 222, 225, 227-231, 235, 249, 255, 312, and 313.

Zapruder told Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler that he had seen the film “so many times,” yet he had trouble orienting himself to frame 185. His authentication of them [the 15 (sic) frames he saw] was conditional on [Commission counsel Wesley] Liebeler's assurance that they were authentic.

Throughout his testimony, Mr. Zapruder searched for, but was unable to find specific Kennedy movements that had impressed him just after the first shot struck. He said they lasted “just 2 or 3 seconds.” The movement, mimed by Zapruder, consisted of Kennedy leaning to his left and putting both hands on the left side of his chest as if to jokingly say, “Oh, he got me.”

Liebeler, however, changed the subject to the head shot and did not return to Mr. Zapruder's “frame by frame” search for those movements. Suspiciously, the JFK movements he couldn’t find coincided with the missing movements by Governor Connally at frame 227, discovered by researcher Milicent Cranor. (The Fourth Decade, July 1994, March 1995, May 1995, Sept. 1995)

Note that frame 227, an apparent motion blur in which Connally’s head seems to face in opposing directions, is the climax of a very odd movement during which Connally appears to be swatting a fly with his hat.

This same movement would result from an unnaturally interrupted pivoting turn to the left followed by a pivot to the right. Also note that during his testimony, frame sequence 227-231 was the uninterrupted sequence Mr. Z was shown and questioned closely about as to authenticity.

Obviously it was final exam time for the film’s forgers.

The $64,000 question is: What happened to the three “negatives” Zapruder thought he had in three film cans when he left the Jameison Film Company and took them back to Kodak because Kodak said that’s what was required for them to make copies?

(Original publication: JFK Deep Politics Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 1, October 1996, pp. 22-25)

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Letters to the Editors

To the Editors:

Regarding Richard Bartholomew’s Z-FILM: RED FRAME, WHITE LIGHT, some who heard that I saw a less edited copy of the Z film thought that was why Mr. Bartholomew said I discovered the “missing movements at Z-227.” Unfortunately, I did not focus on Connally during the one opportunity I had to view the film. My discovery was based on (1) The CBS newsreel doctored to omit Connally's quote on a left turn, (2) FBI testimony on such a turn (no longer on film), (3) witnesses who say JBC turned left as well as right. I never associated the turn with Z-227.

Milicent Cranor

RICHARD BARTHOLOMEW RESPONDS:

When attempting to overcome literary confusion, I have had much personal success choosing the author’s cited sources over hearsay. Readers will find Ms. Cranor’s writings cited following my discussion of her Zapurder testimony discoveries. A bit of legitimate clarification that is required, however, is citation of my regrettably omitted reference to the article in which she reported Mr. Zapruder’s statements: “The Magic Skull,” The Fourth Decade, July 1995, p. 35. As the first to attempt a rational, chronological placement of the missing movements discovered by Ms. Cranor, I look forward to her arguments, and those of others, against frame 227, in favor of another location.

Richard Bartholomew

(Original publication: JFK Deep Politics Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 2, January 1997, p. 19)

Copyright © 1997 Richard Bartholomew, All Rights Reserved

Zapruder film frame 227 (Costella Combined Edit Frames, https://assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/):

1. Author’s note (Jan. 15, 2023): My thinking about Connally’s turn evolved after studying evidence of a shot from the south knoll. Turned left, facing behind him, Connally’s right shoulder blade would face the south knoll, his right wrist would more naturally be held against his chest, and his left thigh would necessarily be raised in alignment with his wrist, allowing a logical trajectory through all of his wounds. In his November 22, 1963 press conference, Dr. Robert Shaw, Connally’s surgeon, speculated about this very alignment as the best reconstruction of how Connally’s wounds happened (see the video below at minute 5:45). The official version of the Zapurder film shows no such anatomical alignment. To understand why Connally would be a designated target, see my essay, “Gone to Texas.”

Gone to Texas

2. Author’s note (Jan. 15, 2023): After viewing a copy of his film subpoenaed by District Attorney Jim Garrson from Life Magazine for the Clay Shaw trial in 1969, Zapruder was asked if it was identical to his original. He testified, “That would be hard for me to say,” and “I couldn’t tell you [if frames are missing].” (Jacob G. Hornberger, An Encounter With Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, p. 149)

3. Author’s note (Jan. 15, 2023): Typo in original. The number of frames shown to Zapruder is 14.