The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration

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 23^rd-25^th, 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]
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