The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK [Paperback]

James H. Fetzer (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 081269547X | ISBN-13: 978-0812695472 | Publication Date: September 15, 2003

The assassination of John F. Kennedy has produced a wealth of dubious evidence and bizarre disappearances, from faked photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald to the missing brain of the president. Until now, Abraham Zapruder’s 27-second home movie capturing the murder of JFK has been considered sacrosanct. This book, bringing together all the leading authorities in the assassination research community, challenges that notion. These experts examined the film from every imaginable perspective, including the technical processes of video production, the laws of physics, contradictions by eyewitnesses, and medical evidence. Their conclusion is chilling but thoroughly documented: that the Zapruder film has been doctored, pointing to a meticulously planned, high-tech falsification of evidence of this momentous, still unsolved, event. Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's death, contributors include David W. Mantick, the foremost expert on JFK assassination medical evidence, and David Healy, an authority on film processing. Black-and-white photographs are included.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...this subperb collection convincingly demonstrate that seeing shouldn't mean believing when it comes to the Zapruder film...Indispensable...Highly recommended." -- --Kerry Walters, William Bittinger Professor of Philosophy, Gettysburg College

About the Author

James H. Fetzer is Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He has published more than 100 articles and reviews and over 20 books in the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. He also edited the highly acclaimed ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998) and MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), both widely praised as ground-breaking contributions to Kennedy assassination research.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Catfeet Press (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081269547X
• ISBN-13: 978-0812695472
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Forty Year Hoax on the Citizens of the United States, November 9, 2003

By 

Theresa C. Mauro "Terry Mauro" (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK (Paperback)

If there was ever another textbook to add to any forensic researcher's library, this is the one. Each section is painstakingly detailed with information, much of which has been declassified since The JFK Act was put into effect following the Oliver Stone film, "JFK", in 1991. This book covers the falsification of evidence following the President's ssassination in Dallas at the hands of the FBI and the Secret Service, with a little help from their friends. One of the principal pieces of evidence allowed to be entered into the Warren Report was a home movie of the event called the Zapruder film, which according to Zapruder himself, on being examined by the Commission, expressed not his memory of the sequence of events as he observed it through the lens of his Bell & Howell the day of the filming, but how they now appeared in what he was being shown by the Commission. "Is that what happened?", he's been quoted as saying, almost off-handedly, during his deposition.
The way in which the film could have been altered is discussed in detail and many proofs are presented of what was done to it. Some may find parts of this book a tad too technical, and may pass over those aspects due to the amount of data generated here, yet there is much valuable information to be gleaned from its pages, including chapters by leading experts in the field,
such as Jack White, David Mantik and David Lifton.
A short appendix on the possibility of listening devices in Dealey Plaza, although difficult to assess, suggests how far things appear to have deteriorated in relation to The Sixth Floor Museum, which several contributors--not only John Costella, but also David Lifton and editor James Fetzer--suspect of taking an active, perhaps leading, role in the continued dissemination of false information regarding this case.
This book is a treasure chest and presents to everyone who seeks it, hard evidence coupled with viable analysis, as well as, quality research compiled by some of the finest scientists in the field today.

26 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work by Fetzer, September 25, 2006

By 

David Johnson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK (Paperback)

This book describes the results of painstaking work by Fetzer and others, using simple tools of geometry and measurements of the still-existing concrete structures at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, to prove that the Zapruder film was heavily and professionally modified to show an incorrect series of events.

Fetzer et. al. got started on to path to their discovery when they noticed a few years ago that the photo taken by one of the girls shown in the background of the Zapruder film contained a sight line that would only be correct if the girl (Moorman) was standing on the street next to the curb. Yet, the Zapruder film inexplicably was showing the girl standing on the grass above the curb. Which was correct? Looking first at the Moorman photo, the researchers were able to establish that the perspective in the original photo taken by Moorman had not been altered after the photo was taken since that photo had been published worldwide by the wire services within an hour after the assassination. Then, working backwards, using simple geometry and careful survey measurements they were able to determine the exact spot where Moorman stood when she snapped her picture, which turned out to be 2 feet into the street next to the curb, just as she had said in her signed, sworn, statement to the police on the day of the assassination. The authors showed that it is a physical impossibility for Moorman to have taken her photo from the position on the grass, approximately 12 inches higher in elevation, where she is shown in the Zapruder film. With that as a starting point, the researchers were able to show that there were other alterations in the Zapruder film including two missing sequences of frames, a series of altered frames (including those with Moorman) where the back ground has been cut, enlarged 130 percent, and repasted into modified frames, and a series of frames modified with a slightly relocated freeway sign, apparently to obscure something taking place behind the sign.

I started off reading this book with deep skepticism over the claim implied by its title but after seeing the results of their work, they have proven every one of their claims without leaving room for even a shadow of doubt.

This is a classic real-life detective story that is fascinating reading. The best evidence that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy is now the very existence of the doctored-up Zapruder film since only a large conspiracy would have had the physical and technical resources to do such a thing in 1963. Certainly the original suspect in the crime, Lee Harvey Oswald, would not have been able to produce the doctored film and he would not have cared anyway since he was himself killed two days after the crime.

Does the crime matter anymore? Probably not since after 42 years, all of the players in the conspiracy are either dead or in a nursing home but it's still important to establish the truth, even for a crime from the distant past, and Fetzer has done this in superb fashion. This work will finally bring closure to the troubling assassination for those who read it.

29 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beyond conspiracy, October 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK (Paperback)

For some the Zapruder film is the most dramatic, and best, evidence of conspiracy in the murder of John Kennedy. As everyone knows, the film shows President Kennedy being slammed back and to his left apparently from a shot coming from the right front, evidence, apparently of a shooter other than Oswald and thus proof of a conspiracy.

Yet, James Fetzer, a conspiracy believer himself, tells us in his book that the film has been altered, leading one to ask why would anyone alter the film and not eliminate all evidence that conflicted with the official version, especially the backward head snap? One would think that if you are going to alter the film, presumably to eliminate any visual evidence of conspiracy, the head-snap would be the first thing you edited out of the film. By contesting the validity of this film, Fetzer has done what almost no one else has been able to do: He has united conspiracists (some of them anyway) and lone-assassin defenders who believe the film is authentic and divided the conspiracy community.

I don't know why those who altered this film left the head-snap in the final product but I do know that this book makes an extremely compelling case that the film has been altered in several places leaving us with an unreliable piece of evidence and wondering what it could all mean. Fetzer plunges us even deeper into the labyrinth.

In one sequence, the driver of the President's limousine turns his head more than 90 degrees in one frame, a physical impossibility. The closest 50 or so witnesses all say the limousine stopped but the Zapruder film shows no such stop. In several other places, frames are missing. Inexplicable anomalies exist. What other explanation is there except that the film, for whatever reason, has been altered?

In another article, one researcher shows people who appear in another film (taken by another photographer in Dealey Plaza that day) but who do not appear in the Zapruder film. How can that be? (I think I found a peculiar and suspicious series of images in the film. In one sequence in which a researcher shows people missing from the Zapruder film, the Franzen family is shown in the Zapruder standing on the south side of Elm Street, watching the wounded President's limousine drive by. Jackie Kennedy is on the trunk of the car. The scene is bedlam. Yet throughout the shooting sequence and as the rest of Dealey Plaza was plunged into chaos, the three Franzens are just standing there, frozen, not moving, not ducking, not reacting, not flinching, not screaming. After reading this book, one wonders whether these images are indeed authentic.)

Fetzer presents experts who explain how the film was altered, which was the most technical and difficult part of the book and one of these experts concludes without equivocation that the film is a fake. He also includes an article by an expert who says that the technology available in 1963 was more than sufficient to accomplish the fakery Fetzer surmises occurred in the Zapruder film.

I noted several negative reviews of this book but I did not see any of these reviewers actually try to explain the anomalies in the film.

I recommend the book as well as Fetzer's two previous compendia of assassination articles, "Murder in Dealey Plaza," (which also contains several articles regarding the probable inauthenticity of the Zapruder film) and "Assassination Science."