Thompson Josiah

[Pages:8]Chapter 1

Tha books consists to 10 chapters, with the pages s third blank or without type, totalling 248 pages, end eight eppencliciss, one, at most, being Thompson's writing. (The fifth ip noteworthy bei?aasa it is "Official Correspondence of Representative iheodoro K# -^upferman, os though his letters to the Archives on this subject are any more official that Tompson's, of mine, vihich proceeded his and ia more complete, and as though they bad not earlier bean printed* as in the Congressional ^ecord, ^ho New York Mmoe, etc. They were* in feet, a proas release by the ^agreasman. hia in podding intended to give tho unoriginal book the trappings of a wallresearched 'one, Comment on riy second end third books, which did have extensive and original reproduction of really official docunants that I had personally dug out of Archives^ oblivion, woe favorable and may have suggested duplication to the non-con/ercial pair#)

If, because of time, we restrict ourselves to the first chapter, WG will not have an unfair reflection of the book#

On the verj first page he adopts abbreviations I intented for `VHITETASH and used in no other work: 7K570 to represent Volume ^eT the Hearings, page 570; ?97 to represent peg? 97 ofjEfcfche Report; F*le No, 80 to reprasent the Commission's meaningless method of referring to its files as "documents, via. Document No. 80#

On the next page, page 4, he says "`/apruder wound the camera, set che speed control on 'Run1, the Ions on ?Telephoto1, and tested the mechanism* .11 Here he has his first footnote, whioh is printed on page 16. At that point he attacks me

for eccusnte quoj^ion of on FBI report that the Commission suppressed. He dAes not soy that 4^3^ accurate or that the Commission sup prosed this report# Instead, he says, "If this report were true then the speed of the assassination v:ould have to be boosted by 30$.,,tf Here he does some suppressing on his own, for the FBI ?a

photographed re-enactment was exactly that, 3Ofi Ihster than the time tho government computed from the Zapruder film, as it timed it# He than ac.ya, "Weisberg made quite e lot of this report#" This is one mxy of presenting a 14->7ord note 8dced at the end of a chapter of about 7,500 words. 'Afcat I really did is to print e photographic reproduction of the aupprossod FBI report*

The Zapruder camera was also suppressed# Important as it is to the crime and its

solution and understanding, to the evidence and tc history, the government had

strenuously avoided taking possession of it, borrowing it instead whenever it

wanted to see it#

was finally taken into government possession after publication

of the book in which I exposed this, bHITliA/ASH li, the book Thompson nisr presented

when he wosn t borrowing from it, an following a campaign by me elone for it8

become government evidence and property, e campaign during which Thompson woa

wntirely unheard from# He then says, accurately, that the camera oould not be

"set" on "24 frames per second", which the FBI report stated, implying that it

could not t*ke pictures at any rate other than 18 or 48 frames par ascend# The

thrust of Tompson's complaint against me here is that I should hove done what he

did, ask the manufacturer,

did only in an attempt to answer me# lAy publication

was or two things he does not and cannot challenge] official inaccuracy and offic-

ial suppression, of which he is also part. However, ha did what he should hot hove.

What I smoked out was not available to me. It was, because of it, to these who

copied from me. His scholarship, typically, was secondhand. If he had the sL ight-

ast idea of hew that camera operates, he'd have known that it can expose film at

rates of speed varying from 18 to 48 frames per aecond-or it can take single expos-

ures, like a still camera.

On fegc 8 he prints what he roprosents are the best copies of Frame 207 available to tlie ^oamiasion and a clearer oopjr ns "acquired" fronj Life (Life seems to think tha right word ia "stolen". In any evant, it is deception, AB ho knevwor at least

2

should have known- the copies printed for researchers by the Archives are not the best copies available to the Commission* Those are first copies* *'rom these,

which ore Incolor, the FBI made copies in black and white* From these the Archives makes copies for researchers* H? cannot ignore the splice through the Commission1s

^reme 207, so he says, "even ignoring" it* Now, he does not ?7er piint the

Sntire *'reme 207, for he cannot* That, in the original, ms destroyed* The patch

on the original caused the splice* He prints a copy from Life without a splice*

^het this means is that ho has a copy of a copy from Life* The Commission had a

clearer

frame than that- a copy of the original, hence the splice* It Is

quite false and Iknowingly flse to? say, as he does, that the only film "the Commis-

sion studied" i? the remote copy* **? knew that slides from the original-first copies-

were made only for Commission study* There cun be no clearer or closer copies*

(7H139). Aa 8 mstter of fact, the Commission, despite hia misrepresentation,

aaw what ho did not, the original (7H138)* The only valid comment he makes have

ic only what 1 had earlier published and he read, in my rating*

He made 3c little "study" that he doesn't know thet tho Arc&ivea projector did not have a "bulb" ns itssource of light* It is en arc projector* It is I who W83 able to persuedo the Archive to allow me to bring in an 8:rm projector to see a closer copy that That was usually 3hown, and I offered the use of my Bram projector for the use of others* Cniesg Thompson's work was very much later than he represents, the Archives had no bulb projector for him to see. And the camera does not have four "settings", as he writes, tho control lever being spring leaded, it can be set but three ways, single-expo3ure, normal ana slow-motion. The fourth, fctop, is not a setting but is the usual position of the lever unless it in used. At the time I wrote this book a duplicate of the camera was unavailable to me. At the time hs wrote hia the Zapruder camera had been in the Archives, thanks to my work, for nine months and available to him for examination. &o, he did worse then he xriticived me for, he foiled to examine the camera itself! 9-footnoto 5 (page 17), consistent with his pretense that ho sew what others, including the Commission, did not, says that the official slides were not made from the original Zapruder film. He accomplishes this two ways, first saying "there is no doubt in my nind that thw life's transparencies are the better of the two sets" and then that Shcneyf9lt "implied" that "both 3ets were made from the original film". The better quality of the Life transparencies, if if exists at all, can exist only in his mldc, for there is no doubt of the fact or the sworn teetlmcny(7H129), the Commission's elides were mode "directly from the original movie". The least-knowledgeable examination discloses this, for they include the two splices that exist cnl? in the original, that having been damaged after the copies were rued?* The fact is that Thompson prints ns better copies those that were made from a copy and ere not as clear 03 the Cormiasion's 3lides, about which ho protends and pepresenta otherwise* Ho fails to report the making of a black-and-white oxigixxi copy of the film mode by LIFE-for all his touting of the association with it, foils to note that all the crucial x?? frames were not made into slides, end thus seeks to protect the FBI and the Commission staff from negligence that is inexcusaable. But his own reference, to showing the Life transparencies to Congressmen. Kupfercaen, denies the meaning he seeks to impart* After the Congressman had aeon all that LIFE could show him, I took him to tho Archives and showed him the slides, showing him also how they could be projected backward and forward end In duplication of motion, and he told mo he saw what he did not at LIFE. He then quotes Sylvia Meagher and her book whore, ha says, on page 27 she "points out how unclear she found the Archives' 35-rcillimetar slides of the Zapruder film to be*'1 What she actually says has nothing to do with this. 3he cays In that with respect to the momenta of Impact, "neither the film nor the color 3lide9 made for the Commission by the Life photo laboratory (now available for examination at the National Archives) enables the viewer to pinpoint this moment. Nevertheless, careful study of the color slides hss other rewards". (On pefce 8 he cays that it wa3 Sylvia who pointed out how more could be understood of the film when it wes projected backwerd*

Apparently ahe did not tefl. 1 Mm her source: me. Sylvia Wao unslblc to spend time

3

at the Archives, I got things she wanted for her. And it is I who first projected the film backward and reported it to her,) Quoting Sylvia as on expert on tho Archives and whst i3 and is net there is les3 than meaningless for she has psont virtually no time there and ho* never made any detailed study ot the Zapruder film* However, with ^upfermen saying thax op;oaita of what Ahompson wants to soy, with the facts boing against him, and no one else who has me do a close study of it to quote, there was nothing ol3e he could dy except stand on his own, which, at beat, is hazardous* lie and she did become close collahbrotors, which possibly ex loins how his book, which appeared first, could contain pege references tc hers, even if they refer to a non-existing text, on.i to how both of them misrepresented the dote of publication of 7HI72T.7A3H exactly the same way*

Also on p^ge 9 Thompson says , "But on Life's blowups, I saw for the first time enough evidence to prove thst Connolly had not been hit until thirteen frames (or three-quarters of a second later", hen he co ;li not have been hit by a bullet that also hit the* President, Now it is not Thompson who saw this"for tho first time'1* Nor did he learn of it from Ms viewing of any version of any part of the Zspruder film* Ho was then working with Balandrie, who was then devoutly convinced th\*t *ho governor had not bean hit until long Inte", at *rsme 237. It is Ray Marcus who much earlier established this, from his own study of the least distinct verions cf the pictures-the printed ones-and wh> told ^hempan n of it at LIFE*B offices. Ray made this knowledge available to others working in tie field, including me, in July 196(5, before Thompson was working-tics with LIFE. In o further effort to carry this lie off, in a note on fc'? e bottoms of pages 8 and 9, ho repeats what J had earlier published in ^HITEWABH -and alone had published - thettthe RBI working copy of the Zaprudor^film. wa= a copy of a copy an I this less clear than it could and should h>ivo been, e concludes with G flsse statement, here quoted in full:"On Feb 25, 1964, a representative of Life projected the original film for Shaneyfelt f,(5H138)* That is a reference to the testimony of Shoneyfolt, who said, not that the film hod been shown him alone but also to "Commission representatives and representatives of the FBI and Secret Service hers in the Commission building". Had hompson quoted this testimony accurately he could not have lied thet bhe Commission never saw the original film, or pretended he saw what they didn't* The legitimate point ho doss not z&ikQ-end cannot, befauso he is the defender of the Commission an:) the FBI- is that there woe no excuse for the Conn? in si on not hoving the original, which was available to it, if not with Life's cooperation, under subpsne. This ic ^hst- I published, vshilu also publishing frames from the? Zacruder film-but in meaningful context, not as part of a public relations ploy. I also, and severely, criticized LIFE, &nong other things, for pretending to release the missing frames of tho original film when they didn't. LIFE did not sue no-but they did sue Thompson* The difference is in our ap roaches. Mine was legitimsto work, hie flackery

19-Eere he quotes Dr* Cyril : echt on "another interesting phenomenon", that the President's heed moved backward at Frame 313 in response to what the Commission said was a shot from the buck. This is an obvious impossibility end requires no genuine expert, which Dr* ?tect is, to establish it. Of this Thompson says merely that it "jiad_not been mentioned in the Report^. How cculi it have been unless the Report wnTaiT^atTrely iHTf errfT^na*It^Xs^riTterly destructive of the Report. By this means ho avoids mentioning that i hadpublished this in flHITFfASH II (Page 221 )f and that Ray Marcus had independently and by other means also observed it-it is very obvious- before he began writing his book* Rather Thompson protends that this is his own original work, his "discovery"*

Here also he reveals the scholarly incompetence of his own field investigation, presumoably for Life, and at its expense and while on its nsyroll, for hs interviewed the Phil Willises. Nov; without going tc Bellas I learned that lira. Yiillis sew the President's head go backward in reaction to thi3 shot. Her huqbond and she mads no secret of it and believ? thin is the reason she was n:.v*r called ss a Commission witness and that neither was ever interviewed by the FBI until June 1964, when he mede his pictures public. Thompson mskss no mention of any of these thijgs, even though he quotes other witnesses who S8y leas tha this, ^ad he, he also would have hod to acknowledge the reason Mrs. Willis was not called ss a

witness and admitted the official investigation wao a deliberate coverup*

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Interestingly enough, in his examination of one of theb?/iULis daughters,

Liebsler reveals ha has called the wrong one as a witness# Thompson also has no

comment on this# Yet the Commission accounted for all of the V/jLlli&eo, oil of vhom

ware present, in its testimony, except the one who saw the fatal shot nost clearly

end was not called* Ju3t os interesting is the fact that the FBI report, vh ich I

publish in full in IH-TCGKAPIIIC NHITK A?S (179-00)* ac ntains no reference to any

FBI interest in whet ^rs# Willis sew.

In this connection, Thompson reprints a copy of the Max Phillips gocret

Service memo that I printed in Photographic Whitewash (pefeea 138-9) on page 311#

was either rewarded with a legible copy by th*: government, which assured me

it bed none, or touched the official copy up to make it legible. But v>het he failed

to note, own though it would seem to ce important to his argument that he pretends

is his own, is that Zspruder also, before ho was officially brainwashed, said the

shots came from the front of the President# Had '-hoEjpson, ho vould also have had to point out that there was an official misrepresentation of what witnesses saw* T^ia,

as a nan who really seeks to protect the official investigators, he could not *a amsotviiell.showing nothinS!* nd " The photos he says,"consttitue the only inviolable form os evidence". ue is

too modest, for he, as well as the FBI and Commission staff certainly did violate

lthinat t;hh"eTm 9fi7ssirn-gy ffraSmslebsleo*f the Z*e*pru?d7e8r ofinlmpaagere 1"5i,ncwointhsoeuqtuetenltliainl'g! athltehiorugShettoSJyJ are those frames, that could show the essential evidence, he and th, S ? '

this loilu)

Sh0t ?0UM h973 b6aa fired f" the

time et "at

fifth sUh?owanft.aethfin?s?ta!m ntissoifontheb?thhitt8ionygnoo shthoet fbierfsotre s*ho'tr.?H2e 1g0o, easndintthoa'tthims ilolns*8

shot. Fi*o"r huim3 rto?rdsayicththisot istheno?ticjutsyt:rea Ws9iSmpTOlekcm n i-sataIm keu,ltenonnaouiselyit" awicthestuv! first

w.hhisAt t^thaevy bshow but wha!t't,,.aiesy uim o pnootenshtowab. oTubt s thZeapmriidsseirngpicfrtaumreess cislenaorlty n-ehcoews,saarsily Thompson know for I printed it in TOrMI II, which was out before ? ?*n ?

rhardi"f?inb?ibvhvbee,0ftcak'?n inC ghehisllfptiecdtureeooubeGftor?etoafraimte to20k2n. owIn oefveintsthceonutnecnltesa, r thbl-atc'kmainldswhite

^emo e-g?n9ra..ion cores printed by thv Commission, even blurred -g they are bv

*

the screen of the reproduction process, and eve-n further magnified tsaxiimawx

?mfwn\Jl!T `J?, slz?,ln 7/Wch

^immiscion orinted them, this is clear. In Frame

w2?a!lki'l nl gldin5.tb ossthetCisfetraeetmt>, hPiisctucaremeernad cohmosingbegdouwn nt,o walk. In Frame CC2 he can beaten

. , Thlf, *? lr'-a*utabls sndxit was known to evidences ,,hst, whUe seeming to criticize the

Thompson. It government,

is one of the he really seeks

mtaon7y

new effort!'!to fom'acfke int cnod that was not already quite public, s?v.* th" rublic r"ln-

t:

' riiiircr resontat ion.

i ? t?

tin '.:ii:v no. horfai^lcm of

|

9spwe9nftk!'w enltdhlezs,sJPh1'uodu5rJsr")?3ex

araining it faram by frame..'." Thus after everyone elee?s, oarticularly

Ray t^rcus a and mine. H is consistent with Oeis's high standard that ha say, aa

he does here, that the association with LIFE gave Thompsrm accasB t3 c7oara' t

tfion, w S-bjttL hevii it *?? on the Life cooy, thTeh*LoifnelysPt?iTM ll^trtaendspfeaermene-cbiye-sf,waom* etheexaminast., of slides med? lor the commission by UFB and available to researchers in the

ationax Archives, cannot be any closer to the original that the Archives set,

eny otow*** *"* ?thei' C?Py' 188 raad9 fMm tfls orl?lnal* It ia impossible to get

Geis is also helpful to those who wondor about whet xhorapaon is really uo to in

Gi2?I A*

18 ln dir?Ct ""tMdletioa to that advanced by his -scholar".

1966,^axter publication of every one of the other books except ray second peir.

Ao a dedication to his singular intarost ln public ervice only, a reflection of

e`^nftii^-e0rproror^fi`+t othneththeoubgoohkt foof LpIrFoEfiitn, eGxecihsanpgroeclfaoim r ethdes"eoufrewofffreurmteos doof ntahtee the (Zapruder) film", e doesn t specify which frames, but they ere those -on which he (Thompson) had labored so long end on which hie argument rested." This is really an ofid one, for Ray Marcus had developed hie proofs (exactly the'same ones

1 f

8df-pt OTld C"U h-'np3CE'3) with only ^?t hod previous been orinted.

17?rkUP ;,arcU9

mo in July 1966 consisting of his conies of the

?S'-1-? **"* frames, the least distinct possible, but clear enough for him. it is also

a spectacular estimate of the profit the savvy M*. Geia exported to make from the

Thompson book. By that time the rights to the Zepruder film he sought to buy with

.he39 profits from this book has bem so large that the royalties alone, raid to

Zeprauer, nad coma to about a half-million dollars!

'

If Mr. files wea serious, he is e vary canny businessmen. If he were not, which is

"o-^thvfin,,P g0. STI+tbml9a'y, in"tlh.e108e3n?d, bheovwrsesvteerd. Ha e vnansdt ?hroomp posofnpourboloieceidtyed thtoat sttheeanl Lcoifsot'9him property, as Life saw it. Life promptly filed suit.

And thus we hove a clear delineation of the noble, non-comraerical Geis-Thfcmpson motiVHXion*

A cknowle dgement s~z i -xii i

The most important one is micaing* That is to the alresdy-publiehed books, particularly the Whitewash series* ^ithoutnpireting them Thompson \f) uld have nothing*

He quotes Publisher ^erxiQrd Geia as saying "publication of thos book ia not dictated by commercial considerations.11 He might have titled this the Gesi Resolution. Geia is the re known ed manufacturer of filthy books, created to serve the m rk he ~

thinks exists, and commissionacl to fit that marked onco he is satiafiod it is

reedy to bo milked. Thompson's book thus takes to place with Valley Of T^a fblls and Exhibitionist*

This statement 0I3O represents a ^ois convolution. In November 1065 he said, after havinf had Whitewash read, that he would never do any book on the subject

be&suso he could r.ot do a subject like it justice. Two years caller thnn the

eprcnroncc of the Thompson book he was corroct* TIME ani LIFE hove devote! much space to the sxtolling of G8aif3 skill in dcsignSdg smutty bo^ks for profit*

Among those to whom Thompson acknowledges his indebtedness are 3ix people to vshom

I had given my unpublished material in confidence to help them? in their researches. Before the book appeared^ one of these people told ms 11 d find Thompson very generous

in his acknowledgements,

3 is correct* The wonder is in tlio long"listing of names

if he omitted the garbage man* The effect of this it to make it seem that ho is

honest and does acknowledge his sources and his helpers. The truth is this is part

of his deception, for what he does not credit is the major eource of his material

what others, mostly I, hod already published.

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