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Whatever your hand attains to do, - do. Kohelet 9:10 |
Abraham Zapruder (May 15, 1905 – August 30, 1970) was an American manufacturer of women's clothing. He was filming with a home-movie camera as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, and unexpectedly captured the President's assassination on what came to be known as the Zapruder Film. In both the immediate aftermath of the assassination and the half century since, the Zapruder Film has become one of the most studied pieces of film in American history.
While most people think of Lee Harvey Oswald as being the man whose presence in American history comes entirely from the Kennedy assassination, Abraham Zapruder was also made into a household name by the assassination. Zapruder was an otherwise unknown clothing salesman when at the age of 57 - in the right place at the right time with a rolling camera - he shot what has become arguably the most analyzed 26 seconds of film in history.
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Zapruder was born into a Russian-Jewish family in the city of Kovel in Ukraine (at that time under the Russian Empire). He received only four years of formal education in Russia. In 1920 amid the turmoil of the Russian Civil War, his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn, New York. Studying English at night, he found work as a clothing pattern maker in Manhattan's garment district. He and his wife Lillian married in 1933 and had two children.
In 1941 Zapruder moved to Dallas to work for Nardis, a local sportswear company. In 1954 he co-founded Jennifer Juniors, Inc., producing the Chalet and Jennifer Juniors brands. His offices were in the Dal-Tex Building, directly across the street east of the Texas School Book Depository.
Zapruder died of stomach cancer in 1970 in Dallas. A 2007 film, Frame 313, tells the story of his life.
Zapruder considered himself a Democrat and was an admirer of President Kennedy. Not originally intending to bring his camera to the motorcade, at the insistence of his assistant he retrieved it from home before going to Dealey Plaza.
The camera was an 8 mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 PD—top of the line when it was purchased in 1962. Zapruder waited atop a concrete pedestal along Elm Street, his receptionist Marilyn Sitzman prepared to steady him from behind, and began filming as the President's limousine turned onto Elm Street in front of the Book Depository. The next 26.6 seconds were captured on 486 frames of Kodak Kodachrome II safety film.
Walking back to his office amid the confusion following the shots, Zapruder encountered Dallas Morning News reporter Harry McCormack, who was acquainted with Agent Forrest Sorrels of the Secret Service's Dallas office. McCormack offered to bring Sorrels to Zapruder's office. Zapruder continued to his office where he sent his assistant Lillian Rogers to find a Secret Service agent, in case McCormack failed to find Sorrels. McCormack did find Sorrels, outside the Sheriff's office at Main and Houston, and together they went to Zapruder's office.
Zapruder agreed to give the film to Sorrels on the condition it would be used only for investigation of the assassination. The group took the film to the television station WFAA to be developed.
After it was realized that WFAA was unable to develop Zapruder's footage, in the late afternoon it was taken to Eastman Kodak's Dallas processing plant where it was immediately developed. Because under the Kodachrome process, different equipment is required for duplication than for simple development, around 6:30 p.m. the developed original was taken to the Jamieson Film Company, where three additional copies were exposed; these were returned to Kodak around 8 p.m. for processing. Zapruder kept the original, plus one copy, and gave the other two copies to Sorrels, who sent them to Secret Service headquarters in Washington.
While at WFAA, Zapruder described on live television what he had seen:
Late that evening, Zapruder was contacted at home by Richard Stolley, an editor at Life magazine (and first editor of the future People magazine). They arranged to meet the following morning to view the film, after which Zapruder sold the print rights to Life magazine for $50,000. The following day (November 24), Life purchased all rights to the film for a total of $150,000 (equivalent to $1 million in 2007). (Zapruder gave the first $25,000 to the widow of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, who had been killed confronting Lee Harvey Oswald in the hours after the assassination.)
The night after the assassination, Zapruder is said to have had a nightmare in which he saw a booth in Times Square advertising "See the President's head explode!" He determined that, while he was willing to make money from the film, he did not want the public to see the full horror of what he had seen. Therefore, a condition of the sale to Life was that frame 313, showing the fatal shot, would be withheld.
On November 22 United States PRS Special Agent Maxwell D. Phillips sent a hand-written memo to Secret Service head James Rowley, stating that, "According to Mr Zapruder the position of the assassin was behind Mr Zapruder." But in his testimony to the Warren Commission Zapruder was less certain:
Zapruder added that he had assumed the shots came from behind him because the explosive wound on the side of the President's head was facing that direction, and because police officers ran to the area behind Zapruder.
He broke down and wept as he recalled the assassination, and did so again at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw.
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