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The Warren Commission examined as small an amount as possible of the photographic evidence available to it.
It had no interest in witness stories of FBI,Secret Service or Dallas Police personnel confiscating film and failing to return it. The Commission had no desire to see the voluminous amount of film taken by professional cameramen of the assassination scene just after the shooting. This film could have shown people entering and leaving the Book Depository building,among other things,and thus either verified or repudiated the testimony of many witnesses. Oswald may even have been shown leaving the building.The Commission, likewise, wanted no part of the television video tape available.Of particular disinterest was the video of a press conference at which Dr. Malcolm Perry of Parkland Hospital had referred to the President's throat wound as one of entry. In one of his finest moments, counsel Arlen Specter explained the failure to obtain this footage by telling the Commission members: "...we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews and we were unsuccessful..." This statement directly contradicts Dallas Secret Service Chief Forrest Sorrels' declaration (in a communication to Inspector Kelley) that the videotapes were available and if the Commision didn't act soon the television stations were going to destroy them. Sorrels described such items as interviews with the Parkland doctors (almost certainly including the notorious "neck entry wound" press conference); the search of the Depository, including the discovery of the alleged assassination weapon; a number of statements by Lee Harvey Oswald, complaining about his rights and demanding a lawyer, as being among those readily available. The problem was, no one "investigating" this crime wanted anything to do with real evidence, so there is now no record in the Archive of any of these films that were described as available by Sorrels.

Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman described, during his Warren Commission testimony, seeing a black and white movie of the assassination. Since a black and white movie of the shooting is not known to exist, this was most interesting information, to say the least. Counsel Arlen Specter thought otherwise, as he abruptly changed the subject once Kellerman mentioned it. (Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 2, p. 92).

Most people think that Abraham Zapruder was the only one filming that day in Dealy Plaza. Actually, there were many people taking pictures, both moving and still. Some have never been identified,and several were known to the Commission but ignored. Hugh Betzner, Jr. took three photos as the motorcade turned onto Elm Street,and may have gotten a view of the so-called sniper's window on the sixth floor of the Depository. F.M. Bell filmed parts of the assassination with his 8-milimeter movie camera. He was never questioned by any authorities, and only became known to researchers when critic Josiah Thompson published some of his frames in his early,classic work SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS.
Mary Muchmore filmed the assassination with her home move camera, from the opposite side of Elm Street as Zapruder. Unlike Betzner's pictures,for example,which were ignored altogether,Muchmore was accorded the high honor of having three of her frames published by the Commission. U.P.I. had purchased the right to her film and it was widely known of,so this may have forced the reluctant "investigators" to actually acknowledge the existence of the movie. A friend with Muchmore in Dealy Plaza, Wilma Bond, was taking photographs, but the Commission had no interest in them. Mrs. Elsie T. Dorman was a Book Depository employee watching the motorcade from an open fourth floor window. The FBI reported,in their typically inprecise way, that she "was taking pictures." The Commission did not want her film- whether it was still or moving-and she wasn't called as a witness. Curiously, Victoria Elizabeth Adams, who was standing with Mrs. Dorman, did testify before counsel David Belin. She was never asked anything about Mrs. Dorman and if she saw her "taking pictures." Belin also was uninterested in what she'd seen from her excellent vantage point,or where she thought the shots came from. There was no time for that sort of trivia, because Belin was busy interrogating her about such crucial matters as what kind of high heels she'd worn that day. (Hearings and Exhibits,vol.6,p.389). Also standing with Mrs. Dorman were Dorothy May Garner and Sandra Styles, but neither was called to testify. The confusion surrounding Mrs. Dorman's film continued over the years. Josiah Thompson stated, in his book, that she was using her new movie camera that day,but happened to stop filming at the crucial moment,missing the shooting itself. (Six Seconds In Dallas, p. 14). It was later reported in a newsletter,however,that researcher Gary Shaw had attempted to interview Mrs. Dorman and view her film, but was told by her husband, John T. Dorman,in September 1976, that the film had actually belonged to him, since his wife had been using his camera, and that he'd sold it to an unknown man who came to his door and offered him one hundred dollars for it. The newsletter also declared that LIFE magazine had published frames from the film in a 1967 issue. (The Continuing Inquiry,September 22, 1977,p. 8). The film was mentioned in the March 23, 1979 DALLAS MORNING NEWS,where it was reported that the House Assassinations Committee had film showing motorcycle policeman H.B.McLain at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets at the correct time an open microphone on his vehicle to have recorded the sound of the shots being fired. The film was said to have been taken at the time the first shot was fired by the late Elsie Dorman. How this can be reconciled with Thompson's assertion that she stopped filming and missed the assassination and/or Shaw's story that her husband had sold the film to an unknown man is open to question.

Navy Commander Thomas Atkins was an official photographer of the White House filming the motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He was riding six cars behind the presidential limousine and reported his observations in a 1977 article: "...The shots came from below and off to the right side from where I was (the location of the Grassy Knoll)....I never thought the shots came from above." Atkins returned to Washington that day and assembled his film into a movie entitled THE LAST TWO DAYS. The film was described as "terribly damaging to the Warren Commison finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin." Neither the Warren Commission or, fifteen years later, the House Assassinations Committee, would have any interest in Commander Atkins or his film. Atkins stated in the 1977 article: "It's something I've always wondered about. Why didn't they ask me what I knew? I not only was on the White House staff, I was then, and still am, a photographer with a pretty keen visual sense." (MIDNIGHT, March 1, 1977, pp.21-22).

Canadian journalist Norman Similas, in Dallas for a carbonated beverage bottlers' convention,was standing on Elm Street less than ten feet away from the limousine when he snapped a very interesting photo just as the shots were being fired. In an article published in the Canadian magazine LIBERTY, he described what the picture showed: "The picture I took on the curb of Elm Street was trained momentarily on an open, sixth-floor window.The camera lens recorded what I could not possibly have seen at that moment-a rifle barrel extended over the windowsill. When the film was developed later,it showed two figures hovering over it." Similas went on to describe what transpired thereafter: "Upon my return to Toronto,I submitted my developed negatives to a daily newspaper. When they were not used on Monday, November 25, I phoned and asked that they be returned. Later I received a fat check in the mail, but the one negative which clearly showed what I believe to be two figures in the window of the assassin's nest was missing. When I pressed for it, I was told that this negative had somehow become lost. It has never been returned to me." The newspaper which "lost" the crucial negative was the Toronto Telegram.(Whole saga of Similas originally told in PHOTOGRAHIC WHITEWASH by Harold Weisberg, pp. 223-235). Another Canadian, Ralph Simpson, told Dallas Police Sergeant Patrick Dean that he'd taken motion pictures in Dealy Plaza on November 22, 1963, that he thought included the motorcade and the Book Depository at the time shots were being fired. He even offered to airmail his film from Victoria, British Columbia, if the Commission should want to see it. Naturally,the Commission didn't want to, and the only reference in the record to Simpson and his movie is the testimony of Sergeant Dean. (Hearings and Exhibits,vol.12,pp.443-446).

Gordon Arnold was an Army soldier on leave who was searching, the day of the assassination,for a place to film the motorcade from the area of the railroad tracks. Just as he went behind the stockade fence and headed for the underpass, a man in civilian clothes with a sidearm approached him and told him no one was allowed in the area. The man flashed an identification badge and Arnold headed for the knoll. Arnold began filming the approaching motorcade and felt one shot whiz by his ear and another go over his head. He then claimed a policeman approached him,asked "what the hell I was doing," then demanded the film from his camera. Arnold, who was unknown to researchers until years after the assassination, reported for military duty in Alaska two days later. No one took a deposition from him or even asked his name and he has never seen the film he handed over to the police officer.The House Assassinations Committee,like its predecessor the Warren Commission,didn't interview him even though they knew of him and his story. (DALLAS MORNING NEWS,August 27,1978).

Another amateur photographer, Charles L.Bronson,who filmed the assassination from a block away, had earlier filmed some other interesting footage.At 12:24 p.m., an ambulance made a sick call at the Depository building (this in response to the legendary epileptic seizure that some have theorized was a ploy to deflect attention away from more important activities about to unfold), and Bronson happened to be pointing his camera in the direction of the sixth-floor window at the time. According to critic Robert Groden, the footage appears to show two persons,not one on the sixth floor just six minutes before the shooting. Bronson's film was actually viewed by the FBI in 1963 but agent Milton L. Newsom reported that it "failed to show the building from which the shots were fired." This document was discovered among 90,000 pages declassified by the FBI in 1978. The film is obviously a significant piece of evidence, is in color, and one of the persons on the sixth floor can be seen wearing a purplish-red shirt. Photographic expert Groden noted that "you can actually see one figure walking back and forth hurriedly."

Film missing from the record includes photos taken by WFAA-TV cameraman Thomas Alyea who,among other things,captured the rifle found on the sixth floor in its original position of discovery. Also not available is the film taken by George Phenix or Ron Reiland. Critic Harold Weisberg stated that he believed that some of their film was of the Texas Theatre interior and the arrest of Oswald. NBC photographer David Weigman was known to have taken movies which included the front entranceof the Book Depository immediately after the assassination, but the story is the same- the film is not in the Archives and neither he nor his film is mentioned in the record.

A home movie taken by amateur Robert J.Hughes, which showed the sixth floor Depository window seconds before the assassination was actually mentioned in the Warren Report. The Warren Commision devoted a section of its report to what little controversy it permitted, under the heading "Speculations and Rumors." In a shocking (even for the Warren Commission) misstatement of fact, it dealt with the monumental problems that the Hughes film presented in this fashion:
"SPECULATION- An amateur 8-milimeter photograph taken at 12:20 P.M.,10 minutes before the assassination of President Kennedy, showed two silhouettes at the sixth-floor window of the Depository.
COMMISSION FINDING- A film taken by an amateur photographer, Robert J.E.Hughes, just before the assassination, shows a shadow in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor. This has been determined after examination by the F.B.I. and the U.S. Navy Photograhic Interpretation Center to be the shadow from the cartons near the window."
An actual viewing of the film reveals that the presidential motorcade is visible beneath the sixth-floor window of the Depository. This means that whoever watched the film, be it FBI personnel or Warren Commission staff,had to have known that it was not taken at 12:20, or ten minutes before the shooting,but was in fact taken only seconds before shots were fired. Not even the Warren Commission could claim Oswald fired at the President when he wasn't even visible in a film taken as the limousine passed under his alleged sniper's nest. But then again,maybe "lone nuts" do resemble "shadows" in the eyes of lying bureaucrats.

The woman who has come to be called "The Babushka Lady" by critics, due to the type of scarf she can be seen wearing in film of the assassination scene, merits special attention. This woman's proximity to the presidential car as it passed by under fire was captured forever by Abraham Zapruder, her eyes remaining glued to the viewfinder of her motion picture camera as she filmed what must have been an unparalleled view of the "Crime of the Century." In any honest investigation, she would have been one of the very first witnesses questioned and her film would have been considered to be of vital importance. Instead, she was shunned to such an extent that all we can do now is guess who she might have been. An entertainer named Beverly Oliver would surface later and claim to be The Babushka Lady,
and her story would be accepted by most critics, including Oliver Stone, director of the movie JFK. Ms. Oliver claimed to have been employed next door to Jack Ruby's Carousel Club at the time of the assassination and in 1970, revealed for the first time how her film had been confiscated by two men identifying themselves as either FBI or Secret Service agents. The film hadn't been developed and Oliver stated she hadn't seen it since she handed it over to them. The DALLAS TIMES HERALD would report that the House Assassinations Committee's reaction to the Charles Bronson film being discovered was to state that only one other incident of apparent new footage being found had occurred during the course of their "investigation." It concerned a Dallas woman who had supposedly turned some film over to the FBI, which then lost it, but the Committe spokesman said that this footage was later found. On May 29,1979, the Committee's Chief Counsel,G.Robert Blakey, was questioned by DALLAS MORNING NEWS reporter Earl Golz about the film. Golz reported that Blakey was vague and at first didn't seem to know whether the Committee had the film or not. Golz then described the film in more detail and Blakey responded: "oh,yeah, I am pretty certain we had it...if so, it didn't show much." Critic Gary Shaw,in reaction to this, contacted Blakey regarding the story, and the Chief Counsel told him: "there is no higher official than me on the staff of the Committee and I know nothing about the film." Robert Groden,the photographic expert and critic who served as a photo consultant to the Committee, told Shaw that he was certain the Committee had the film,although he wasn't allowed to view it, and that FBI agent James Hosty (who "watched" Oswald for the FBI in Dallas) is known to have said that the Committee had possessed the film for some time and that "he knows for a fact" that they had watched it. (The Continuing Inquiry, January 22, 1980,pp.13-14). Wherever the truth lies with the Babushka Lady and her movie, it should be remembered that the Warren Commission could have avoided such future confusion had it conducted a different sort of investigation.

There are the curious series of photos taken by Jim Murray shortly after the assassination that show an unidentified man, accompanied by Dallas Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers, picking up what appears to be a bullet and placing it in his pants pocket. The pictures were taken in Dealy Plaza, and the object that may be a bullet was lying next to a manhole. When John Campbell, a reporter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot in Jackson, Michigan asked HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey why the Committee didn't mention anything about these pictures in its report, Blakey commented: "That's been around for years. What he's picking up is just a blade of grass. There's nothing to it." Blakey did not explain why the man would place a piece of grass in his pocket or, more significantly, why a photographer would waste eight pictures capturing such a nonsensical event on film. (The Continuing Inquiry, September 22, 1980, pp.17-18).
Of course, none of the shenanigans pulled by the Warren Commission, the FBI,the Secret Service and other official "investigating" agencies would have been possible without the acquiessence of the media. This was made crystal clear from the moment JFK was pronounced dead in Dallas. Perhaps the most concrete example of the governmental control exerted over the press was found in a December 11, 1963 teletype from the New York office of the FBI to J.Edgar Hoover, which reported that NBC had promised to "televise only those items which are in consonance with bureau report (on the assassination)."

Most people mistakenly think that dressmaker Abraham Zapruder was the only person who captured the events of November 22, 1963 on film. Hopefully,the evidence outlined above reveals just how untrue that widespread impression is. What has been detailed here is just a part of just this one aspect of the assassination. We could examine,for instance, the whole Zapruder story in depth-the huge cash settlement bestowed upon him by LIFE magazine and their refusal to then use the evidence they'd paid so much for. Then there's the way another amateur cameraman,Orville Nix, was treated but....those are other stories and this space is limited. Suffice to say that no one in a position of authority treated the most essential photographic evidence as if it were wanted. The motives behind that provide much grist for speculation.