Abraham Zapruder

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Abraham Zapruder (May 15, 1905 – August 30, 1970) was an American manufacturer of women's clothing who filmed U.S. President John F. Kennedy's 1963 motorcade traveling through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, and unexpectedly recorded the assassination of the President. The Zapruder film is famous for being the most complete visual record of the assassination.

[edit] Background

Abraham Zapruder (he pronounced his last name with the stress on the second syllable) was born into a Russian-Jewish family in the city of Kovel in Ukraine (then under the Russian Empire). He received only four years of formal education in Russia. In 1920 during the turmoil of the Russian Civil War, he emigrated with his family to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York.^[1] he went to night school to learn English. He found work in Manhattan's garment district as a clothing pattern maker. He and his wife Lillian married in 1933, and had two children.^[2]

In 1941, following a job offer by a friend, Zapruder moved to Dallas to work for Nardis, a local sportswear company. In 1954, he co-founded Jennifer Juniors, Inc., a company that produced two clothing brands, Chalet and Jennifer Juniors.^[3] His offices were located in the Dal-Tex Building, just off Dealey Plaza (it is the building directly across the street east of the Texas School Book Depository).

Zapruder was a supporter of the Democratic Party and an admirer of President John F. Kennedy. When he learned that Kennedy's motorcade would pass through Dealey Plaza, he originally decided to observe without a camera. At the insistence of his assistant, he returned home to get his Bell & Howell movie camera and film the procession. His film captured the assassination of the President and has become one of the most studied pieces of film in history. It became an essential part of the Warren Commission Hearings.

[edit] As an assassination witness

Abraham Zapruder locates Kennedy's head wound in a WFAA Dallas interview, less than 2 hours after the assassination.

Zapruder filmed the assassination using a then top-of-the-line Model 414 PD 8 mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series movie camera purchased in 1962, and at the time of the assassination, loaded with Kodak Kodachrome II safety film. This historic film footage (comprising about 486 frames which run in real time in 26.6 seconds), is the "Zapruder film". Zapruder stood atop the most western of two pedestals that are part of a concrete pergola (the Bryan Pergola) sited along Elm Street in the plaza. Behind him stood his receptionist, Marilyn Sitzman, to steady him if he got dizzy while filming.^[4]

While walking back to his office Zapruder encountered Dallas Morning News reporter Harry McCormack. The two discussed Zapruder's film. Mr. Zapruder wanted the Secret Service to see the film. McCormack knew Forrest Sorrels at the Dallas Secret Service Office. McCormack offered to find Sorrels and bring him back to Zapruder's office. Zapruder returned to his office and sent his assistant Lillian Rogers to see if she could find a Secret Service agent in case McCormack failed to find Sorrels. McCormack found Sorrels outside the Sheriff's office at Main and Houston, and they went directly to Zapruder's office.

Realizing the importance of the footage but still shocked by what he had seen, Zapruder agreed to turn the film over to Sorrels. Zapruder's only condition was that the film could only be used by the Secret Service and others investigating the assassination. The group took the film to the television station WFAA to be developed.

There, Zapruder described and illustrated on TV where he thought Kennedy's head wound was:

JAY WATSON (Station WFAA Dallas): [...] And would you tell us your story please, sir?
ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER: I got out in, uh, about a half-hour earlier to get a good spot to shoot some pictures. And I found a spot, one of these concrete blocks they have down near that park, near the underpass. And I got on top there, there was another girl from my office, she was right behind me. And as I was shooting, as the President was coming down from Houston Street making his turn, it was about a half-way down there, I heard a shot, and he slumped to the side, like this. Then I heard another shot or two, I couldn't say it was one or two, and I saw his head practically open up [places fingers of right hand to right side of head in a narrow cone, over his right ear], all blood and everything, and I kept on shooting. That's about all, I'm just sick, I can't…
WATSON: I think that pretty well expresses the entire feelings of the whole world.
ZAPRUDER: Terrible, terrible.
WATSON: You have the film in your camera, we'll try to get...
ZAPRUDER: Yes, I brought it on the studio, now.
WATSON: We'll try to get that processed and have it as soon as possible.^[5]

But WFAA had no capability to develop 8 mm film and so it was taken to the Eastman Kodak processing plant in Dallas which agreed to process it immediately. Because that Kodak lab did not have the equipment to copy 8 mm film, three copies were run off at another lab, then returned to Kodak for processing. Zapruder kept the original, plus one copy, and gave the other two copies to Agent Sorrels, who immediately sent them to Secret Service headquarters in Washington.

At 11:00 that evening, Zapruder was called at home by a reporter at Life magazine. They arranged to meet the following morning to see a showing of the film.

That night, Zapruder is said to have had a nightmare in which he was walking through Times Square and saw a booth advertising "See the President's head explode!" ^[6] He determined that, while he wanted to make money from the film, he did not want the full horror of what was seen to be made public. On November 23, 1963, Zapruder sold the original film and print rights only to Life magazine for $50,000. Two days later, Zapruder added the television and motion picture rights for a total of $150,000, divided into six annual payments of $25,000. Zapruder donated his first $25,000 payment to the widow of murdered Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit. Part of the deal with Life was that frame 313, showing the fatal shot, would not be shown.^[7]

[edit] Testimony

At 9:55 p.m. Dallas time on November 22, United States PRS Special Agent Maxwell D. Phillips sent a hand-written memo (Warren Commission Document, CD87) to U.S. Secret Service Chief James Rowley that accompanied one of the first generation copies said of Zapruder's origins of at least one shot, "According to Mr Zapruder the position of the assassin was behind Mr Zapruder." However, in his testimony to the Warren Commission Zapruder was less certain:

LIEBELER: Did you form any opinion about the direction from which the shots came by the sound, or were you just upset by the thing you had seen?
ZAPRUDER: No, there was too much reverberation. There was an echo which gave me a sound all over. In other words that square is kind of — it had a sound all over.

Mr. Zapruder said the shots came from his left and from where he was standing. The book depository was behind him. He specifically denied hearing any shots come from his right (the grassy knoll area).

[edit] After the assassination

Abraham Zapruder's Bell & Howell Zoomatic movie camera, in the collection of the US National Archives

Zapruder later testified before the Warren Commission, where he broke down and wept as he recalled the events of the assassination, and at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw. He died of stomach cancer in 1970 in Dallas.

Zapruder was played by Ray LePere in the 1991 film JFK.

A 2007 film Frame 313 tells the story of Abraham Zapruder's life. In the film, Zapruder was played by Dawid Pawlisiak.

[edit] See also

• John F. Kennedy
• John F. Kennedy assassination
• Lee Harvey Oswald
• Bell & Howell
• Warren Commission
• Zapruder film

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Abraham Zapruder, vol. 7, p. 569.
• Zapruder's testimony during the Clay Shaw trial
• The Zapruder Camera - Bell & Howell 414PD Director Series - Overview and User's Manual
• Abraham Zapruder at Find a Grave