JFK Assassination Forum

I’ve looked at some more of the Z-film frame by frame using the Costella edit which includes the area between the sprockets, and I’ve discovered that at Z212 2 SS agents beside and across from Clint Hill are still visible and they are looking forward.

Up to Z230, the SS agent behind Clint Hill is visible and at Z230 this agent is still looking forward.

The Willis girl has stopped and looks back by Z205 but 2 SS agents at Z212 haven’t turned their heads back and up to Z230, the SS agent next to Clint Hill had not turned his head back to look at TSBD.

Should there not have been some Clint Hill reaction from Z190-Z230 even if he was tasked with keeping his eyes focused on JFK?

So it seems to be a discrepancy in reaction time  by the SS agents up to at least Z230 versus the more immediate reaction of the Willis girl stopping running by Z200.

Plausible reasons  for this apparent discrepancy of reaction times between the SS agents and the Willis girl?

1. The SS agents were hung over from the Thursday night party and their nervous systems and senses were depressed?
2. The SS agents were desensitized by having heard occasional random motorcycle backfires occurring over the duration of the limo trip from the point of origin to entering Dealey plaza?
3. The Willis girl was reacting to something else other than a gunshot such as a motorcycle backfire?

While we can only speculate why some people did not recognize the first shot as a gunshot and some did, being hungover would be way down on my list. There is zero evidence the agents were hungover. Jackie only remembered hearing two shots. Do you think she was hungover too. By belief is that after slowing down for the sharp turn from Houston onto Elm, all the vehicles, including the motorcycles began to accelerate. Maybe it was the roar of the motorcycles that muffled the sound of the first shot. Maybe the fact the first shot happened while the motorcycles were accelerating caused some to believe the first shot was a backfire. Some witnesses said they thought it was a firecracker. What we do know is that Glen Bennett recognized the first sound as a gunshot and for whatever reason, Clint Hill did not. He only remembers hearing two shots. He erroneously believes there was a shot while he was running to the limo and before the headshot that he didn't hear. It was actually the first shot he didn't hear. The two agents on the right running board are shown looking behind them in Altgens 6  which was taken in the early Z250s. That doesn't tell us when they actually turned their heads. The fact remains that most of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza remember hearing 3 shots which corresponds to the spent shells in the sniper's nest.

JBC was adamant until the day he died that he heard a shot before the one that hit him in the back. Since we see JBC start to turn to look over his right shoulder at Z164, 60 frames before we see his jacket bulge out, that's pretty solid evidence the first shot was the missed shot. What we don't have is definitive proof of when that first shot was fired. We don't know how long it took JBC to react. I feel strongly the first shot was fired in the Z147-148 window although I felt strongly for years that it was fired at Z151. I could be persuaded to change again if I was presented with compelling evidence. So far nobody has provided me with any such evidence.

CBS-TV news summary from November 23rd, 1963:

(deleted)   

One of Tom Dillard's photos.

I hadn't heard about this, but this post at the McAdams forum suggests the damage was done by HSCA consultant SRI International: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/as_cdRN9yrk.

Note: on the Dillard Photos:The HSCA was requested by the SRI
International to be allowed at a cost of $5,000.00 to enhance by means
of state of the ark equipment to find possible hidden information within
the negatives of the Dillard photos....of the TSBD...Dillard had custody
of his original negatives, but he co-operated and turned over twelve of
the negatives..four eventually being processed....SRI would not accept
liability and made this clear...in early 78 the study resulted in the
findings above.
Unfortunately ,the negatives, particularly frame 24,
"........became detached from the agitation apparatus and the gelatine
was abraded during the time it was freely agitated without
support"....in otherwords they ruined it.....they blamed it on a
malfunction of equipment ...they extended apologies and regrets to the
Committee and Dillard....
Robert Groden who was the HSCA independent consultant was asked to
comment ..on the damage...He found that negative # 8 also had been
damaged by a coating not originally on the negative...but now
evident...negative # 24 suffered also from this problem...( this is the
negative that showed the 6th floor window ) also part of this negative
appeared to have had it's emulsion rubbed off from the film base....To a
lay person, the negative looks terrible .....the emulsion on the
negative appears to have run down and melted into a pool of taffy like,
a pool below.... The left side of the sniper's double window in badly
affected, though the lower part of the snipers window escaped serious
damage ...the whole negative looked like it was worn and crackled...and
in otherwords the negative also had a tear (hole) in it......Dillard in
1979 received back his damaged goods , and copies of the SRI report, and
a letter and the Groden comments...Blakely lamely wrote Dillard that the
Committee was assured the process was safe and regretted the damage...."
These two historically signifigant frames had been irreversibly harmed
by experts."....(12)

12: "Pictures of the Pain" Richard B Trask, 1994:p: 452 (note 38) p:469

The US has done more than its part in Ukraine.  Of course, there is resentment in Ukraine.  Trump is not just dishing out billions in US taxpayer dollars to them.  Instead he is holding others accountable for doing their part and asking that the US get some compensation.  The policy of just sending them endless billions with no accountability is over.  They don't like it.  Tough.  This is a regional conflict.  Ukraine has the misfortune to be in Russia's sphere of interest.  No one can change that.  There is no magic wand to wave or enough wealth in history to change that.  You know who else is unpopular?  Zelensky.  He has suspended elections to keep himself in power.

No offense, but these are just Trump-speak talking points. A "slightly" more nuanced perspective from the Journal of Democracy, written by two experts on Ukrainian politics:

A year ago, some in government thought that it might be possible to hold the presidential election despite the war, not least because the president would have won easily: According to data collected by MOBILISE (led by Olga Onuch) in partnership with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Zelensky’s approval was sky-high at 85 percent in July 2023, even with few gains on the battlefield. That number has since dipped — to 77 percent in late 2023. More recent data from February suggest that trust in Zelensky also declined from 77 to 64 percent in February 2024, likely because of Zelensky’s unpopular decision to reshuffle the army leadership. Nonetheless, the president remains the most popular and trusted politician in Ukraine by a wide margin. Only military figures such as former army commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and army-intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov are more popular than Zelensky.

Ultimately the government chose not to hold elections — a decision that was in line with both the recommendations of local elections-focused NGOs and Ukrainian public opinion: According to a December 2023 survey, 84 percent of Ukrainians opposed holding a presidential election. When asked in February 2024 what should happen in lieu of elections, 69 percent preferred that Zelensky stay in office until the end of martial law. Even among those who dislike the president, it is hard to find anyone in Ukraine who supports holding a vote now. Opposition leaders such as former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk have publicly recognized that, despite their disagreements with the president on most things, now is not the time to go to the polls and Zelensky’s legitimacy is not in question.

The most fundamental reason for not holding elections is that approximately a third of the country’s population would face enormous challenges participating — including around 6.5 million Ukrainians living abroad (over a million of whom reside in Russia) and five million living in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, as well as nearly four million internally displaced people and a million active military personnel. Finding and registering these displaced Ukrainians would be an enormous undertaking, one that would effectively be impossible in Russia or areas under Russian control, which include Crimea and five Ukrainian provinces. Locating Ukrainian military personnel would not be hard, but arranging a free and fair vote on the frontlines would be. How does one ensure a secret ballot in the trenches? In addition, active warfare in significant parts of Ukrainian-controlled territory creates obvious difficulties: Missile and other attacks occur almost daily in various parts of Ukraine, including large cities such as Kharkiv.

All this means that voter turnout would not only be low, but would systematically underrepresent those Ukrainians most directly affected by the war. Chosen by a rump of the population, winners of such elections might be considered illegitimate by at least some of the population. And Russia would likely make its own accusations of illegitimacy in an effort to polarize Ukrainian voters and cast international doubt on Ukraine’s democracy.

Very few democracies have held elections with an active military conflict on their territory. Among European democracies directly affected by World War II, only Denmark (under German occupation) held elections during the war. Great Britain did not hold elections between 1935 and the war’s end in July 1945. The United States did hold elections in 1864 during the American Civil War, but without the participation of nine Confederate states. This does not seem to be a good model to follow: The systematic exclusion of Southern states almost certainly exacerbated polarization in the country.

...

Thus, while it is certainly possible to hold some kind of elections in Ukraine, it would be nearly impossible to hold ones that are free, fair, and inclusive. Some Ukrainians fear that election campaigning would sow divisions in society at a moment when the country needs to remain united. Moreover, organizing elections now would divert scarce resources and attention away from defending Ukraine against the existential threat from Russia.