The Zapruder film: a staple in JFK documentaries & films, it is regarded as the most critical visual record of President Kennedy’s assassination. This book asks what would it mean if it could be proved that this version is not the original footage captured by Abraham Zapruder on November 22, 1963?

Examining some of the most crucial frames, it is argued that these show evidence that they have been tampered with, from frames being damaged & repaired, & frames that have disappeared altogether, to actual composite frames which were constructed using previous images. It also argues that close study of the film & it's importance is obstructed using copyright laws.

It sounds like something out of a conspiracy film doesn't it? And yet there are compelling arguments for this to be real. For example, the POTUS has just been killed & the evidence is there on film, surely a reason to treat the film with care & kid gloves, & yet this film is seemingly treated so carelessly that several frames are damaged & some are missing altogether. Odd, yet perhaps explainable.

But then there is the argument that some frames have been put together using separate parts from other frames into a composite which gives the film an eerie quality when watched. The crowd barely reacts when the presidential car is proceeding down the street, almost as if the same crowd frame has been repeated over several frames, & then there is the dense black unnatural shape on the back of Kennedy's head, almost as if someone has painted over it....

These are just a few aspects of the argument & there are many more, including experts in the field who maintain that the film shows signs of having been altered. It was certainly an interesting read & will add to the ever-growing pile of evidence that a conspiracy was covered up. 3.75 stars (rounded up)

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Forum on Open Access to Government Records, Inc, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

2.5 rounded up
The description sounds so intriguing and interesting. The book really didn't deliver and I expected more than was delivered. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Thank You to the Author and the Publisher for the opportunity to leave an review. I leave this review freely!

Unfortunately, I was hoping for more from this book than what I got. Having read the book written by Zapruder's daughter, I expected more than what was given here. This almost seemed more like a written version of a conspiracy driven vendetta against the Sixth Floor Museum, than an actual indepth look at the film and what happened to it after the assassination.

I honestly found myself thinking that nothing given in this book was actually believeable and so I tapped out near the end.

I wish I could be more positive about a this, but this book is not it if you want to truly learn about the Zapruder film.

Perhaps because mu father developed film while in the Air Force I became fascinated with the process and in my high school years began developing black and white film in our family bathroom where I would also print the photos using an enlarger. I experimented with a great deal with all the nuances of altering the finished projects such as using letter decals to make Christmas cards. Dark projected onto photographic paper developed as white on the finished photo and Vice versa. Sun and shadows were elements every photographer battles for a perfect portrait. I say lol these because I understood these things the first time I ever saw the Zapruder film that captured the assassination of President John Kennedy. I don’t believe in “normal” nuances or shadows and things only get trickier when dealing with color imaging as was this film. The perceived massive tampering of the Zapruder film is the basis for “SAM: The Zapruder Film Copyright” by Mark Javitch who seems more irked by not getting a clean copy of the film than by the assassination itself. His reasons for his tampering claims are that Jack Kennedy received wounds our government doesn’t want us to be aware of and The Sixth Floor Museum of Dallas makes its bread and butter on the lone gunman theory. This book gets a little perplexing- the original Zapruder home movie is in the national archives, the widely circulated versions are doctored, the Freedom of Information Act is being violated, aforementioned Museum holds the copyright? And this assassination itself is a special category for public viewing. The CIA for one is reported here as having admitting causing damage to some frames of this 8 millimeter artifact. Where does honest error end and a cover-up begin?
Personally I need more than this book to put me on the conspiracy train. But I guarantee there are a lot of folks already aboard high-diving one another with “I told you so!”

Thank you NetGalley & the publisher for a copy of this book! We should probably start off with: I am coming fresh off of reading Abe Zapruder’s granddaughter’s book “Twenty-Six Seconds” for a school project. I thought it was a coincidence this was available to read and wanted to see how the stories differ; one from the family and another from someone on the outside. I found many of the claims in this book diametrically opposed those made in “Twenty-Six Seconds”. While I can certainly understand the questions and inquiries Javitch aims to investigate throughout this book, there seems to be information or language missing to fully flush out those ideas (e.g. complicity from the secret service, angles of the driver’s head, etc.). Apart from the content, I would also say the sentence structure is a bit disjointed and could use some reimagining. To this point, there were many seemingly recycled phrases and sentences that took me out of focus, accompanied by various spelling errors and typos. One assertion of Javitch’s I could concede on is the popularized and accessible version Zapruder film is just that: a version. The ethical, moral, and legal implications arise in discerning whether or not the original film should be public access or be treated as a historical document with sensitive information about a world leader. The night of the assassination, there were three copies made by government agencies; those three copies and the original house unaltered frames. Their very existence is notable and their existence out of the public eye is as well. I did enjoy the visual elements included; they helped communicate with specificity what the author was arguing and how that actually translated to frames of the film. Overall, this was certainly an interesting read and something that I may revisit with time, and a different set of eyes.

A thoroughly riveting account of a key historical moment - the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

It poses many important questions and has contributions from experts in their fields that question official conclusions as well as set out a path of how they see the Zapruder film should be treated and handled going forward.

A very interesting read!

This is a very short book. About 150 pages.
The story is that the Zapruder film we have all seen in regard to the Kennedy assassination is actually a third generation CIA developed piece of work and the actual film is being kept from the public.
It is an interesting argument….however, as more time elapses and the original film degrades….the answers will be lost to the ravages of time.
Apparently the Sixth Floor Museum has the rights to the original and thus far have refused to open the container that holds the original. This a pity since it could put these type of books to rest if they are untrue. Also it could preserve ( hopefully ) what is a very important piece of history.
I don’t know if I am a believer of what I read here, but it is food for thought.. let’s see the film and then we would know, right?
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowin* me this ARC.

SCAM: The Zapruder Film Copyright by Mark Javitch. JFK assassination conspiracy addicts should love the author’s hypothesis that the widely used Zapruder film is a creation of the CIA and part of its coverup of what really happened in Dallas on 11-22-63. Javitch cites missing frames and multiple splices in the film. Unfortunately the copy provided through NetGalley made looking at the pictures difficult. This reader will draw no conclusions, but hopes the published version will be easier to read for interested parties. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book.