Penn Magazine November 2017

“But here is where the case gets
tricky. Years later, a group of assassination
buffs took and audio tape
of my description of what I saw in
the office of Zapruder’s lawyer and
laid it over the film as a narration.
So the impression was given that
Dan Rather was part of a conspiracy.
Either that or he was a Communist
dupe, or something, how else
could he have seen the film, etc. etc.”
No one that I knew every thought
Rather was a Communist dupe. All
I wanted Rather to do was to admit
his error to the television audience
he had misinformed. Grudgingly,
he admits the error in his book,
but that is not the same as saying
so on the CBS evening news.
I paid a film company in California
to have the voice of Rather
synchronized to the action of the
Zapruder film. I tried unsuccessfully
to show the film to Rather.
My film was shown at the Democratic
Convention held in Miami in 1972.
Newsmen who saw the film were
shocked at what they saw and immediately
confronted Rather who reportedly
said “No comment.” On the tenth
anniversary of the President’s death we
showed the film to Jim Mangrum head
of Associated Press for Texas. The
showing was in my home. Mangrum
was so upset he called Rather, but was
unable to reach him until the next day.
Mangrum called me to inform that
Rather said he made “An honest error.”
Here is how Rather slides by his incorrect
description, the only possible
narration depicting the actual shooting
of the President that the nation
had that Saturday: “... Regrettably,
it was not without error, in terms of
what was unsaid about the movement
of the President’s head. A few
who have tried to sell themselves as
assassination experts misused that
account to build a false premise.
16/Penn Magazine/November 2017
“It is gruesome even now, and always
will be, to talk about this scene, but
the single most dramatic piece of the
film is the part where the President’s
head lurches slightly forward, then
explodes backward. I described the
forward motion of his head. I failed
to mention the violent, backward reaction.
This was, as some assassination
buffs now argue, a major omission.
But certainly not deliberate.”
All those who have seen the film
(and it is now possible for everyone,
with no thanks due to LIFE)
know the President’s head did not
go as Rather said, “... forward with
considerable violence.” The head
went BACKWARDS and to the
left with terrific violence. In fact,
physicists say the force was so
great the bullet must have weighted
one pound, or more likely was
a round of explosive ammunition.
The handling of the Zapruder
film has been dishonest from the
beginning. LIFE paid a tremendous
price with the stated purpose
of withholding the film from the
people. This done by a group to
whom the people had granted the
RIGHT of freedom of the press
so the people could be informed.
The public first saw the film during
the famous 1968 Clay Shaw trial in
New Orleans as then District Attorney
Jim Garrison got a cop of the film
from LIFE by court order. He showed
the film at least thirteen times to the
jury and to the entire courtroom audience.
All were shocked. One of the
two rulings made by that jury was
that there was a conspiracy that killed
President Kennedy. The other jury
ruling was that Clay Shaw was not
involved. That jury determination
would be different in light of 1976
documents revealing Shaw was CIA.
Years later we learned LIFE had
delivered to Garrison a copy of the
film deliberately made fuzzy or out
of focus which hid much of the incriminating
evidence. But at the time,
no one was able to know LIFE had
deliberately withheld this evidence in
violation of the Federal court’s order.
Only in 1973 when Robert Groden
came forward with his clear copy of
the famous film did we know of LIFE’s
contempt for truth, for Garrison and
for the Federal courts. The Groden
clear copy of the film was stolen directly
from the LIFE files and is now
available to the public from this writer.
The film convincingly shows the
culpability of both LIFE and Dan
Rather, and it also indicated the
depths of despair the American people
now experience because of these
men and institutions who have so
blatantly violated the sacred RIGHT
given them.