TESTIMONY OF LYNDAL L. SHANEYFELT RESUMED

(Present were Mr. McCloy, Mr. Dulles, and Representative Ford)

Mr. Specter. May the record now show that the Commission has now reassembled on the first floor of the VFW Building where a motion picture projector and slide projector and screen have been set up for viewing of the films.

Mr. Shaneyfelt, what are you going to show us first of all?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. The first film will be of the color motion picture made through the rifle scope as the car drove down the assassination route at approximately 11 miles an hour. It will give the view the rifleman had as he aimed the rifle from the sixth floor window of the Book Building.

(Film)

Mr. Dulles. Is that going 11 miles per hour?

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This film will be the black and white photographs of the car in the fixed still positions in each of the frame numbers described in previous testimony.

In addition the final portion of the film is a run through of the car at 11 miles an hour on three separate runs filmed as the rifleman would have seen the car looking through the rifle.

On the first run of the car going down the assassination route I have stained frames in the vicinity of frame 222 which is after the first clear shot after the tree, I have stained the frame at the location of shot 313, which is the second pink flash you will see.

I found, in examining the film, that this is a shorter span of time than in the actual film. It is a span on the reenactment of about three and a half seconds between 222 and 313.

The second frame stained is 313 but since it is running at a faster speed I have also stained a spot that represents 5 seconds which is what the time lapse was between frame 222 and frame 313 in the actual assassination films.

That will be after the car driving scene.

(Film)

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This is the last clear shot and this is an adjusted last clear shot before going under the tree. This is the shot approximately 185. This is frame 186 which is the adjusted shots which would account for a 10-inch variance.

Shot of frame 207, and the adjusted frame which was 210. This is frame 222 and you can see the tree is still in the background.

This is 225 now. 231. At this point Governor Connally states he has been hit by now. This is 235. 240—249—255—and the shot to the head which is 313.

Mr. Specter. What is this? Describe this, Mr. Shaneyfelt.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This is the run at 11 miles an hour containing the pink stain. This is another run at 11 miles an hour. It will give you some idea of the difficulty of tracking a car with a heavy camera mounted on the rifle.

Mr. McCloy. You have to sight that with a camera?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Sighting through a camera.

(Film)

Mr. Redlich. Just as a final thing, Mr. McCloy, would you like to see the Zapruder film?

Mr. McCloy. I think we will take the original Zapruder again, I don't know whether we have anything that is more significant in the black and whites, I am talking about the particular movies of the frames, we have not seen those.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Yes.

Mr. McCloy. I think we have seen all we need to see with regard to that. What have you got left?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. The original Zapruder film.

Mr. McCloy. We will see that.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. We have the duplication of the Zapruder film reenactment. The first portion of the reel is the still shots and the last portion is the run through at 11 miles an hour.

Mr. Specter. I think you would find that worth while to see.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Then we have Nix and Muchmore of the same run.

Mr. McCloy. Let's do those, too.

Representative Ford. First is the original Zapruder.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Original Zapruder. This is not the original. This is the first copy.

(Film)

Mr. Specter. Will you state for the record what film we just saw?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This film we just viewed is a copy made directly from the original Zapruder film of the actual assassination.

Mr. Specter. Could you now show us the film which was taken at the reconstruction from the Zapruder position?

(Film)

Mr. Shaneyfelt. These films we made in Dallas have been developed and left intact and have not been edited in any way so there are a lot of blank spaces where we run the leader off and turn the film. This is position 161. This side-to-side jiggle is a camera malfunction.

Mr. McCloy. This is 16 mm.?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. No; 8 mm.

Representative Ford. Is this from his camera?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Yes; taken with his camera. Frame 222, frame 225. This is frame 231.

Representative Ford. He has a delayed reaction compared to what the President did.

Mr. Specter. What frame is this, Mr. Shaneyfelt?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. 313, the head shot.

Mr. McCloy. The head shot.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This is the position which is not duplicated on the Zapruder film. This is running the film out to reload it.

During that run at 11 miles an hour we made no effort to duplicate the body position because it would have been most difficult to know just when to turn. The only other films we have are the ones we shot with the Nix and Muchmore cameras of this same run from their positions.

Mr. McCloy. Did Nix, Muchmore get a second shot of the head shot?

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Mrs. Muchmore got the head shot and Mr. Nix got the head shot.

Mr. McCloy. They both got it.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. We have both those films.

Mr. McCloy. We might take a look at it while we are here. I don't think I have ever seen those. Those are 88 mm., too.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. Yes.

(Film.)

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This film is the film that was taken by Mr. Orville Nix of the assassination. This is along Houston street going toward Elm. There was the head shot. We will roll it back and run it at slow motion. The head shot shows just a very faint pink.

Mr. McCloy. Very soon after this sequence begins. Just as the President is directly under the white abutment in the background. I will try to give you a clue about when it is going to happen, there.

The next film is the film that was exposed in Mr. Nix's camera standing in the position determined to be his camera position at the reenactment in Dallas, with the car traveling at approximately 11 miles an hour along Elm street.

These films were compared with each other and found to be consistent in the size of the car in the area of the picture and verified the position as being that of Mr. Nix.

(Film)

Mr. Specter. Have you now shown us, Mr. Shaneyfelt, all of the movies that we saw, we took in Dallas?

Mr. McCloy. Mrs. Muchmore.

Mr. Specter. Mrs. Muchmore.

(Film)

Mr. Shaneyfelt. This is the motorcade coming down Main and turning into Houston street.

Mr. McCloy. She didn't know she took that.

Mr. Shaneyfelt. No.

Mr. Specter. Have we now seen all the films from Dallas? That concludes the films.

Mr. McCloy, for the record, I would like to have the films marked with Commission Exhibit No. 904 identifying the Zapruder copy. That is the copy of the original Zapruder film.

May I say here, parenthetically, that we do not intend to reproduce all of this in the published record of the Commission since we have extracted the key numbers on Exhibit 885 on the album which shows the frames of the Zapruder film after the President's automobile turns left off of Houston onto Elm, but for the permanent archives these films should be made a part of the permanent record.

I would like to have a copy of the original Nix film marked as Commission Exhibit No. 905. I would like to have the copy of the original Muchmore film marked as Commission Exhibit No. 906. I would like to have all of the movies which we took at Dallas marked in a group as Commission Exhibit No. 907.

Mr. McCloy. That is all the movies that were taken on May 24 in Dallas by the test team, so to speak.

Mr. Specter. Right, Commissioner McCloy. They are marked as Commission Exhibit No. 907, and I would like to move formally for the admission into evidence of Commission Exhibits Nos. 904 through 907 at this time.

Mr. McCloy. They may be admitted.

(Commission Exhibits Nos. 904, 905, 906, and 907 were marked for identification, and received in evidence.)

(Whereupon, at 7:20 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)