WFAA-TV Zapruder Interview 11/22/63

[Jeff Shaw]

Like most on here I have been studying and researching the JFKA for decades. Until recently I could not bring myself to accept Zapruder alteration. The biggest obstacle for me was the WFAA interview with Zapruder the afternoon of the assassination. When asked what he saw, at one point Z takes his right hand and indicates a large wound to the right side of his head, almost in the exact location we saw being blown out in the film he took. From his indication, the wound was frontal-temporal, at least that’s my interpretation. Bear in mind this interview was done within an hour or so of the assassination. All of which begs the obvious question- Zapruder’s account, first-hand and fresh in his memory, comports with the Z film, and yet I don’t recall any of the Parkland personnel ever indicating a wound as frontal as these two sources indicate. If the film was altered, again I believe there’s solid evidence it was, how do I/we explain away Z’s account on live

Fellow CTs, help me get this monkey off my back.

[Dan O'meara]

Like most on here I have been studying and researching the JFKA for decades. Until recently I could not bring myself to accept Zapruder alteration. The biggest obstacle for me was the WFAA interview with Zapruder the afternoon of the assassination. When asked what he saw, at one point Z takes his right hand and indicates a large wound to the right side of his head, almost in the exact location we saw being blown out in the film he took. From his indication, the wound was frontal-temporal, at least that’s my interpretation. Bear in mind this interview was done within an hour or so of the assassination. All of which begs the obvious question- Zapruder’s account, first-hand and fresh in his memory, comports with the Z film, and yet I don’t recall any of the Parkland personnel ever indicating a wound as frontal as these two sources indicate. If the film was altered, again I believe there’s solid evidence it was, how do I/we explain away Z’s account on live

Fellow CTs, help me get this monkey off my back.

You believe there is solid evidence the Zapruder film was altered?
Familiarise yourself with Roland Zavada and his report on the authentification of the Zapruder film. You can then put any silly notions of alteration behind you.

[Jeff Shaw]

Because I’m no photographic expert, I’ll avoid all the technical arguments for alteration and ask this- where is the rear head wound in the Z film? The wound described by Parkland doctors who stood within inches of JFKs body and saw cerebellum oozing from the wound? And if cerebellum is oozing from a head wound on a victim lying on his/her back, then that wound is , in fact, located in the occipital area of the skull. This is not conjecture on my part, it is testimony from expert witnesses- medical doctors who were present in Trauma Room 1 on 11/22/63.

Back in the 1990s I personally corresponded with Doctors Jones and Carrico, neither placed the head wound near the apparent temporal/top of head blowout depicted in the Z film. Adding further weight to these men’s observations is Dr. McClelland, also present in Trauma Room 1 and who, as recently as 2023 depicts the head wound as occipital.

Further support for an occipital blowout comes from Clint Hill, in his book from a few years ago. Even the First Lady’s Warren Report testimony (…but from the front, you know, there was nothing.”) can be easily construed as argument against the head wound seen in the Z film.

The fact that the wound observed by the aforementioned, and others, is absent from Abe’s film leads me to question the film’s authenticity. I see nothing silly in such a conclusion.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

You believe there is solid evidence the Zapruder film was altered?
Familiarise yourself with Roland Zavada and his report on the authentification of the Zapruder film. You can then put any silly notions of alteration behind you.

The experts - and it wasn't just Zavada although he was, from what I've read, the most knowledgeable person about the film/camera - who studied the film said they found no alteration. So what are we to do with this pretty important conclusion? Simply dismiss it? It's like the backyard photos where experts said they saw no fakery in them. But conspiracy believers reject that conclusion too. Can the experts be wrong? Of course. But you need to show it and not just wave it away.

Garrison subpoenaed the Zapruder film from Time/Life and showed it multiple times during the Clay Shaw trial. Zapruder testified during that showing and vouched for its authenticity. He admitted that he couldn't be sure that every frame from the original was shown or that nothing was changed; but that it "represented" what he filmed/saw that day. Later that film was pirated and distributed by the JFK assassination "underground". It (or a copy of it) was shown on TV in 1970 and then by Geraldo Rivera in 1975. It's from my understanding the one we see today. It seems to me that if the blowout had been altered from the back to the side that Zapruder would have noticed that in the trial? It's a pretty significant change. Did he miss that?

As to the Parkland vs. Bethesda doctor's accounts of the location of the head wound. Why would *emergency* room doctors (remember: not all of them said back of the head; some said side; *see below) at Parkland in a, as they explained, brief hurried setting, be correct about the location of the wound but the autopsy doctors at Bethesda who examined the president for four hours and closely studied the head wrong? What makes the first group right and the second group wrong?

To put it differently: You have one group of doctors whose job it was to save the patient and NOT study the wounds, just keep him alive first, and another group of doctors whose job it was TO study the wounds and not save the patient (since he was, of course, dead). So we have two completely different situations. Which group is more likely to "get it right", locate the wounds properly? Why would anyone rely on the ER doctors over the autopsy doctors? What makes that conclusion correct? After all they missed the back wound and a bullet entrance to the head wound. Why did they miss those two wounds?

Moreover, the doctors at Bethesda have films, x-rays and photos - physical evidence - that supports their explanation. The Parkland doctors have none of that.

It seems to me that if you weigh the Parkland doctors accounts versus the Bethesda doctors accounts PLUS the photos and x-rays and films that it's not close who is right. We can add the accounts of the Connallys and Kellerman who said they were hit/sprayed with blood and brain matter. How could a blowout in the back of JFK's head deposit matter to the front of him? It's impossible. The motorcycle officers - Hargis - said he "rode" through it as it came down. He also said he was watching JFK and saw no exit wound out of the back of the head; only a "splash" out the side. So why didn't he see this rear blowout?

Add to it Zavada's analysis and the timeline and chain of possession of the film and I don't see how one can conclude it was altered.

*Dr. Charles Baxter, one of the attending physicians at Parkland: After JFK was pronounced dead "We had an opportunity to look at his head wound then and saw that the damage was beyond hope, that is, in a word-- literally the right side of his head had been blown off." Right side of the head NOT the back. Yes, other doctors said back of the head; why are they right and Baxter wrong?
Source/link for the above from Baxter: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/baxter.htm

JFK's skull x-rays. On the left in 1960 and on the right after the assassination/during the autopsy. No back of the head/rear exit. It's intact. Just as the Bethesda doctors said and the Zapruder film shows.