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Zapruder heirs want millions for JFK film

By Alan Emory / Scripps Howard News Service

    WASHINGTON -- The special panel created to give the country a definite report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy has run into an expensive problem.
    The owners of the famed Zapruder film showing the Kennedy assassination want more than $15 million to turn over the original of the film to the Assassination Records Review Board, which is scheduled to go out of existence this year.
    The five-member board, headed by U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim of Minnesota, is trying to negotiate for the film at a much lower price. The board however, faces an August deadline for "taking" the film in a process similar to land condemnation.
    T. Jeremy Gunn, the board's executive director and general counsel, said the panel wants the original film, not another copy. The board fears that if the Zapruder family members reject the government offer and auction off the film, it could be cut into frame-by-frame segments, which would then be sold separately.
    One expert said the government settling for a copy of the film would be equivalent to putting a Xerox copy of the Constitution on display at the National Archives.
    Gunn said a 1992 law requires that all records involving the assassination be transferred to the Archive, where the film now resides "as a courtesy." The board met in April and decided then that the film met the legal definition of a national record, but that finding has not been supported by law or court ruling.
    Gunn said the Zapruders thought they were entitled to compensation, and the issue was being studied by the board, the Justice Department's Civil Division and the family. Although Gunn declined to provide details, board members have made clear they consider the amount of the Zapruder demand an attempt to cash in on a moment of national grief.
    On the other hand, board members say, the family of the late President Richard M. Nixon is asking the government for $32 million to turn over all of his original papers.
    The Justice Department has jurisdiction over a "taking fund" to finance transfer of private materials to the federal government.
    The issue could wind up in Congress with consideration of a resolution confirming the government's right to place the original film in the Archives.

About the film

   * Abraham Zapruder filmed the November 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. Zapruder has since died.
   * The film is private property, owned by the LMH Co., whose three shareholders are all members of the Zapruder family.
   * The family has hired Washington attorney Robert Bennett to head up the negotiations for a sales price.