From - Fri Oct 25 11:06:42 1996 From: Michael Ravnitzky Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated Subject: Reprint of Zapruder Article Date: 24 Oct 1996 08:20:39 -0700 Organization: Netcom Lines: 108 Sender: jmcadams@news.comm.net Approved: lho@foxvalley.net Message-ID: <326F85C2.7592@ix.netcom.com> Reply-To: MikeRav@ix.netcom.com NNTP-Posting-Host: able.comm.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-NETCOM-Date: Thu Oct 24 9:03:33 AM CDT 1996 X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Macintosh; U; PPC) Status: OR Path: mcadams.posc.mu.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.comm.net!news.comm.net!not-for-mail Journal of Dallas Jewish Historical Society VOLUME IX NO. 1 Fall-Winter 1995-5755 A MAN AND HIS CAMERA Co-editor, Ruth Brodsky, was startled by a recent call from the Sixth Floor (Kennedy Exhibit). They requested the original notes on the following excerpted article, which has appeared in The Jewish Frontier, and most recently, in Dallas Jewish Life. Request granted. Abraham Zapruder, affable dignified Dallas businessman in his late fifties, spent the early morning of a Friday one November in fierce argument with himself. "Today I get to see my president, and, God willing, I'll be telling the grandchildren about it the rest of my life. So do I take the camera or not? My luck, if I do, I won't get to see him." He left for Jennifer Juniors, where he manufactured women's clothing, without it. As soon as he entered his office, his secretary remarked: "Why Mr. Z, you didn't bring your movie camera." When he said he'd forgotten, she remonstrated: "All week we've wondered how much luckier we could get than to be just a block away from the parade route. If you don't go home and get it you'll never forgive yourself." He went home and got the camera. Lil Zapnuder, a lovely statuesque woman, sat teary eyed with joy as she listened to the radio, over which she heard the crowds roaring a tumultuous welcome to their chief. Mentally she was telling Abe, "All those threats of violence-I told you it was just talk." Stopping to pick up his secretary, Abe worried about finding a parking space, which he did, and a proper vantage point, which he did not, what with the throng occupying the entire Main Street sidewalk. Knowing that after the parade officially ended it would turn right on Houston and left on Elm to reach Stemmons and then proceed to the Trade Mart for the president's speech, Abe steered his secretary rapidly to the park like area where the Triple Underpass leads to Stemmons where stood a few other enterprising souls. There he mounted a narrow five foot pillar which could give his telescopic lens the clearance for a perfect picture. While waiting he nervously recalled the recent ugly anti-Stevenson and anti-Johnson demonstrations during which both had been spat upon, and the threat of extremists to "get" Kennedy. But now the parade was over and there were his handsome president, his beautiful wife and the entire motorcade safely rounding the comer not forty feet away. He pressed the lever even while telling himself "My luck, probably have the film in backwards." His next thought came as he heard the first shot and saw Mr. Kennedy lean towards his wife, both hands over his heart. "Some joker, he heard the backfire, so he's acting out a yah-got-me-pal routine." But the second shot was already sounding, and that terrible gash had already opened Mr. Kennedy's head. Abraham Zapnuder must have needed support in dismounting that pillar, but could not remember it, any more than he recalled when he stopped taking pictures-only that out of a fog of unreality he was shouting to his wife over the phone, "They killed him, Lil, like a dog in the streets they killed him!" For the next few days, while the shocked world mourned and Americans poured out their grief, Zapnuder, hollow-eyed with horror, relived the events again and again. Not only mentally. His films had to be developed immediately for the FBI, the Secret Service, the police. By Sunday, with the intensification of the tragedy caused by the shooting of the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, the films would become the chief basis on which the world would depend for what conclusions it would ultimately reach. The Warren Commission would have a seemingly incontrovertible method of reconstructing the events. Like everyone else Abe could not stay away from the TV. Watching, he saw the anguished widow of J.D. Tippet, the police officer slain while attempting to capture Oswald, and when he heard her say her husband had held two jobs so she could stay at home with their three children, ages 5, 10 and 13, he was deeply touched. Thus when Time-Life paid him $25,000 for his films he quietly gave all of it to the Tippets. This man of modest means not only assured the Tippets of their continued existence as a family, he was the first of many to give small and larg sums. His was, however, by far the largest. When asked how he felt about receiving no acknowledgment of his gift, he answered with a question of his own: "Would that have brought her husband back?" Perhaps his generosity and humility came from his Judaic background and following the teachings of the prophet Isaiah to "judge the fatherless, relieve the oppressed and plead for the widow;" his love for Kennedy from a strong feeling of identification. Both were of humble ancestry. Mr. Zapruder, having suffered anti-Jewish prejudice, was happy to see a man become president despite anti-Catholic bias. Here then, was a saddened man, who once envisioned preserving a shining hour for his grandchildren. Now he struggled to erase that memory, and found it impossible to forget the unforgettable. He could rightfully paraphrase President Johnson's remarks to Congress five days later: "All I have I would gladly have given not to have been standing there that day." The camera itself now rests in the Smithsonian in Washington. Although this interview took place in 1964, the winter promised Mr. Zapruder not to publish it during his or his wife's lifetimes. He died in 1971, Lillian Zapruder Grossman in 1993. Poster's Question: Has the ARRB obtained the materials available from the Dallas JHS? Also, has the ARRB obtained the FBI files on Mr. Zapruder and Mrs. [Zapruder] Grossman?