Program is a joint clementsetween our center for southwest studies. Always exciting when the two canory centers here at smu come together. It is really wonderful for us. It is chronologically the younger partners. The center has been the leading center for software studies for at least a generation. , still in our toddler phase, look up to them. They also babysit us. It works out nicely. I am really thrilled to have you all here tonight for our continuing series of looking at president ial history. This one in particular has such a gallus flair to it. One might say it is fundamentally a gallus story. We all know, especially having gone through the last 50th anniversary of the fateful day in 1963, how much dallas is test rustling with this. I want to take a moment and point out one of our good friends who is here from the museum. I said this in front of her before so i am not embarrassed to say it again. She is this it is the single best Public History Museum in the country. [applause] precisely because it actually takes a hard look at as much as possible. That is what we will do tonight. Especially with this dallas story. I also want to point out that you may have heard that about 25 years ago in fact, exactly 25 years ago, congress in its great infinite wisdom and foresight not a phrase we usually associate with congress they knew we would have this event tonight. [applause] [laughter] consequently wrote the loss of the jfk documents would become available. I was just shown the phone 10 seconds ago. President trump has decided to release most of the documents. Which is great for us because that means whenever we do a kennedy event going forward, we will always have a bigger audience. A guarantee you, there is nothing of interest in those documents. I have not seen them but i am for help i am feeling very confident. We are here tonight to discuss a particular moment from the 1963 event. A particular moment that you have all seen. One of the fascinating things to me about the entire sequence that we are here tonight about how much because human memory is formed through images and visual representation you all have been to the site of this film in 1963. Your memories have no idea that you were not there because you are processing the information. Thats really become a way it has become a global site. You do not have to have ever been there to have been there. The person who really gave us that moment, we will hear that story tonight. We will hear it in particular , who began her career as a founder of the National Holocaust museum in washington dc. She graduated from Smith College and got a masters degree from harvard university. In 2002 she completed her first book entitled salvaged pages young writers to irene of the holocaust. That your it won the National Jewish book award for exploring the history of the holocaust. An mtvalso made into series called i am still here. She has recently come out in a second paperback edition. Sheovember of 2016, published her second book. This is my personal copies so i get this back. [laughter] twentysix seconds a personal history of the zapruder which is a subject of her remarks tonight. If you would please tell me in welcoming our speaker tonight. [applause] alexandra can you all hear me . Me . Yall hear i want to thank andrew who is the director for southwest studies and jeffrey engels, the director president ial history. I am so glad to see this great great crowd of people. In the front row, my beloved family, my aunt myrna, who was abrahams daughter. My cousin erin, dear family friends. That always makes it special for me to be in dallas. What i thought i would do is little bitlking a about how this book came to be. In the years that i was growing would be safe to say that the one thing that the family did not talk about was the film. It was something that was compartmentalized in our lives. It was not that we did not know about it or that i was not aware about it growing up, but it was not something that we ever really talked about. I overheard my parents, or i saw people and stop my parents and ask about our names. I cannot recall a single time in my childhood when i asked a direct question about the film. What i knew growing up with the stories about my grandfather that my father told about who he or was, his personality, his eccentric side, his jokes and talent. The film was something that was off to the side. ,t might have stayed that way except that my dad got sick in 2004 and died rather young in 2006. At some point during his illness he said to me, somebody really should interview me about the film. Thinking, he has something to say. But i did not interview him. Which of course i regret now, but it was not something that i could do. It was not something we could do as a family. I began thinking about the documents, which were scattered around. Things at my aunts house, things that the lawyers office, things in my fathers office, records, photographs. I started to feel that it would be important to bring these documents together and preserve them. I was not alone in the family in thinking that this was something that we needed to do. Also to interview people that were close to our family, or who were involved in the light of the film that might shed some light. What i realized is that i did not know what to ask. I knew nothing about the life of the film. Narrative, the story of our familys relationship to it was completely unknown to me. Do this to begin to first thing of conducting interviews and gathering papers what this bodyt of material might represent, i needed to educate myself. So i started reading about the film. I started being a writer and someone who is curious about the past. Found was that there were these gaps in the historical records. There were all these places were there were parts of the story that was missing. There were parts of the story that had been told in the absence absence of any information of our family. Conjecture, assumption, ways of interpreting our familys behavior. I begin to understand that our families public silence had left thread in the understanding of the film. The essential piece of that is when people wrote about the film, they forgot it was a home movie. This inter alia of the home movie was lost to us. This was so personal from my father. All the decisions that he made and my father made in later grew out of our families value and our family sense of what was important. And my grandfathers history. That shaped the life of the film. Private life was graded together with the public life in a way that had never been explored. If it had not been for that, im not sure that i would have written this book. I do not think i wouldve felt there was a public story to tell. Onlyan to understand that one of us could feel in those gaps. I knew i had to become an expert on this topic that i knew nothing about for most of my life. That is what this book does. What i will do tonight is introduced to a little bit to the life of my grandfather and our family and talk about the taking of the film and how my grandfathers past influenced and the life of the film over 50 years. So our grandfather was born in 1905 in in. All russia. That is his him in his mother arms in imperial russia. That is him in his mothers arms. Hey were extremely poor they lived exactly in the circumstances of hardships and suffering that all jews would have in him. All russia at the time. Antisemitism, not being able to be educated, poverty, deprivation of all kinds. Left russia in 1909 to come to america. Her with her four children. They remained in russia until they did not reach the United States until 11 years later in 1920. During that time there was world war i. There were many, many, many antisomatic things that took place in that region. Unbelievable violence directed at the jewish community. In 1918, of course the bolshevik revolution. In those years, the brothers, as you could see there is abraham, then there are three siblings. To theo is all the way left, morris, the little boy in the middle and the any the little girl to his white zanny the little girl to his right. Morris either died or was killed. The circumstances are not clear. This photograph and document shows hannahs emergency passport application. Israel,time the father, had gotten his u. S. Naturalization citizenship. She was able to apply for an emergency passport from warsaw and make her way to the United States. Morristime she did that, was almost certainly dead. I think you could see the the timee in her from of the first picture that was taken and her face in this later one after having lived through the war and 11 years of having been a mother to her four children alone, the loss of a son, the revolution, and trying to make her way to america. They arrived in 1920, were reunited with my greatgrandfather, israel. Someonedfather who was who always wanted to study and play music. He had a deep love of music and was extremely talented. He was able to play music i. E. A comment he never really had a blessing, but he was just this was a great passion of his. When he came to america he said about set about becoming american as quickly as he could. I saw his certificate of literacy, having on tonight school to learn english like so many jews of this generation, he worked on 7th avenue in the garment district. Booklethis union worker that shows that he paid his dues faithfully. I want you to know. This, 1925 is able in the middle with hair, which is not how he is usually seen. Holding a band show with his friends at the lake. I think it is so amazing to see that first picture of him. This little boy in imperial russia. 20 years later there he is with on the lake with his friends and embracing his new life in america as thoroughly as he could. I like to say that at an off this is true, my aunt is here so she can correct me. I would like to say our grandfather had three great loved loves. He loved music, cameras and gadgets and my mother. This is what she looked like standing in front of the tenement. There were living in the same tenement on beaver street in brooklyn. I believe this picture was taken in the early 30s 1930s. She loved him from the very beginning. She was smith in, or so i was told by her oldest friend from the tenement. She set her cap at him and that was it. He was always the one for her. 1933 and heren they are at niagara falls. The thing about my grandfather that is so relevant for this story because this story is probably like a lot of your parents or grandparents stories. It is extremely familiar. Coming coming to this country poor, the coming american, embracing a new life. From a grandfather and grandmother, being american, snappy dressers, not having an accent, embracing a social life, adopting american ways was equally important to them. My grandfather wanted to shed everything that had to do with the old ways, with russia and everything that represented. His older sisters and parents were not so successful with him doing that. That he sawhing they were at a where was that much harder for them to let go of the past. As a boy 15 coming to this country and comingofage here, this was incredibly important to him. The other thing i should say is that they went to the other thing they did on their honeymoon was to go to the 1933 chicagos world fair. Theme of the worlds fair was a century of progress. Encapsulates this other great love of his, thatts, cameras, anything represented maternity. He love to tinker around the house and wired things, and make things work more efficiently. This was something that gave him an enormous amount of pleasure. That relates intimately to him becoming such a home movie enthusiast. Just briefly, they moved to dallas in 1941. Here they are together in dallas, a picture that i think really captured something of their rapport. I shouldve said in the beginning that i never knew my grandfather. He died when i was 11 months old. Ierything i know about him know from stories, interviews and from the photographs. I always grew up with a sense of his absence. This book gave me an opportunity a great many gaps about historian who he was. Here he is a my grandmother and my at myrna, who is sitting right here in the front row. And my dad looking adoringly at his father. They eventually moved out to and reallytreet attained the middleclass class. They did exactly what one was one was supposed to do coming to america and finding their own way. Fastforward to 1963. Here is my grandfather. This is how most people are used to seeing him. With his receptionist marilyn, who i have no idea she was so hot. [laughter] alexandra until i found this picture. She is kind of fabulous, right . With a cigarette and everything. This is a good moment to talk and the kennedys. Family was our devoted kennedy supporters. My grandfather and grandmother. Theunt flaunted for campaign had pulled hats in south dallas. My dad, when of the Amazing Things that happened in the course of this research is that i found one of these letters, there was a letter might father had written to senator kennedy during the campaign that came to me through the former curator at the museum. When i was corresponding with the kennedy president ial library i came upon another level letter that my father wrote to president kennedy. To graduateabout from harvard law and he wrote this beautiful letter pleading for a job. He said, i want to be part of the new frontier. You ask not what my country can do for me but what can i do from a country. I am asking you, what can i do it really represented for me, not only a window into my father as a young man and as an the depth of also attachment that our family had for president kennedy and the kennedys, as so many other people did. This was not something that came about retroactively but existed from the very beginning. On the morning of november 22, 1963, you all recognize usually i will have to show people this map and show them where my grandfather was standing. I have a feeling in this particular room i could dispense with that activity. My aunt myrna and ruth who is to welcome the president and first lady and were there at this moment when i got up the plane. My uncle was waiting on main street looking out of his Office Building to see the motorcades go by. My grandfather had that morning gone to his office, which was located at 501 m justt, just a date adjacent to the motorcade would pass by. He planned to bring his movie camera. He started taking home always in 1934 when my aunt was a baby. Really boringt of home movies of her taking a bath from a nap andp sitting and eating in her high chair. Just pictures of the family and the children growing up in new york and in dallas. He was really someone who had been taking home movies for a long time. He was quite good at it. Theprevious year he bought director series camera. He brought this brandnew topoftheline camera but he left it on that day. Story. Uch an interesting people have always said, this is a great example of being of where being a zapruder helped. It was always he forgot it, it was rainy or he was too short, but the truth is, he was always as i have learned always a little hesitant to put himself forward. A little insecure, perhaps because he had no education or was an immigrant. He left the camera at home. When he got to the office, lillian rogers, who is his longtime assistant and became a ,ear friend of the family basically nagged him until he went home to get it. People always say this is so amazing, this is so incredible, this is such a twist of fate, but if you knew him and her you knew this is how everything happened in their relationship. He hesitated, she nagged, then he did it. [laughter] alexandra that is how it went. Again, it is this weird way, in which for me, i understood as i began to do this work that i knew things i did not even know i knew. I did not know the history of the zapruder, but i knew the zapruder family. I knew how things worked, i knew our story. Those were the pieces that could be put together with this bigger history to tell it in a fuller way. He went down to dealy plaza with the camera, scouted out a spot. Being a good photographer, he tried a couple locations before it eventually settling in on this for foothigh little concrete abutment where he stood, set the camera to full zoom. He had marilyn, the hot receptionist sending behind him, because he had vertigo to make sure he did not get dizzy. [laughter] alexandra im just saying. Motorcade to the pass by. Let my grandfather. Ake over some of you may have seen this short interview that he gave describing what he saw that day. A gentleman just walked in our studio that i am meeting for the first time. Matt have your name please, sir . My name is abraham zapruder. Would you tell us your story please . Out about a half hour early to get a good spot to shoot some pictures. I saw the spot near the underpass. I got a top there and there was another girl from a office right behind me. As i was shooting, as the president was coming down from houston street and turned, it was about a half way down there i heard a shot. Thisumped to the side like. Then i heard another shot or two , then i saw his head practically open up. Blood and everything and i continued shooting. I think that expresses the entire feelings of the world. So that interview was taken was made just within hours of the assassination. Togetheras been pieced about the events of that media afternoon was that, immediately after the assassination, of course my grandfather knew exactly what happened and knew for sure that the president was dead. No one else around him knew this. He got down from his concrete ,edge and was distraught screaming that the president was dead and that he had been killed and was dazed on the plaza and was approached by harry mccormick, who was a reporter for the dallas morning news, who saw him what the camera. He said, what do you have . What happened . Responded that he needed to talk to the federal authorities. Immediately aware that there was the minute the press got wind of this, a would be something to contend with. He has to be in touch with someone from the federal government. Knew the headmick of the secret service in dallas and said that he would go find him and bring him back to mike grandfather stress manufacturing company. My grandfather went back to the office. They are waiting with him for with another reporter from the Dallas Times Herald who had become aware of the film. He interviewed him at that very moment. Hand written notes from the interview are incredibly powerful and poignant and they are in the art in the archives of the museum. My grandfather immediately try to reach my father. My dad had gotten a job in the Justice Department working for bobby kennedy. His longawaited dream job working in the administration. They married on october 31, 1963. They had their honeymoon and came to washington. This was two weeks after starting the job he had wanted so much. Was able to get my father on the phone. The way that my father remembered this was that he was distraught, he was crying, he kept saying over and over that the president was dead. Me thing that stood out to when i read this account that my father had given was that he kept saying he could not believe that this had happened in america. He cannot believe that the president to be shot down like a dog in the street. Again, i think it takes knowing that he to understand had just been a witness and recorder of this moment that belong to the exact past that he had fled from. This was exactly the kind of violence, political assassination, somebody being ,ragged off a training killed that he left behind in russia for america because of everything that america represented. Not think that he could have put that into words in that way at that moment, the fact that he kept emphasizing that he could not believe it happened here, it think it speaks so much to the particular irony of him having to be the person that cut this on film and what it meant for him to be that person witnessing it in that particular moment. To think not time about that then, things happen for a quickly. They came to the shop, set out to try to get the film developed. Here is another very important one of those little moments things that happen in history that change the course of history in ways that you cannot predict. He did not in that moment say, we will take your camera with the film in and go get it developed and we will be in touch with you. He said lets go see if we can get the film developed. Set off together and this interview was done at w faa when they went to get the film process unsuccessfully. It went to kodak. At the kodak lab balls walled oswald was arrested. Giveid of the comes out we us a copy and my grandfather said sure and that was that. One of the things about this story is that you cannot forget that it was 19 63. Moments that remind you of a that wouldve been an interaction between these two people over this object instead of it being immediately swarmed upon and understood is something couldntially be as potentially be an enormous significance. To the rest of the day to get the film developed, to get duplicates may, to deliver two copies of the film to the secret service. By the end of the night, my cardfather came home in his with the original camera, the original film and a copy of the film with him. Walked into the house that night and without saying anything to anybody, set up the projector and showed the phone to my grandmother and my uncle. My aunt reports that she was much too distraught to watch the film at that time. I ended up begetting the book with the story of the film being shown in the den of the zapruder family home on the night of november 22 because, again, it puts the film where it belongs, understood as a whole movie. Exactly the way the films were always shown in the den to the family. Even though this has a tremendous significance, it was nevertheless, deeply personal to him and that was something that never change. That night, before my grandfather could go to bed, he got a call from the l. A. Bureau chief of life magazine who had come to dallas, learn my grandfathers name, looked him up in the phone book and called the house wanting to know if he could come over and see the film. This is the photograph of him young. Immediately my grandfather understood, i think, the outlines of the problems that was facing him. There was going to be a media frenzy over this film. He was traumatized, of course. Deeply fearful that it would be exploited or used in a way that was not in keeping with his values, but aware that he needed to be rid of it. That he was not going to be able to keep it. That he had this object in his hands that he was going to have to figure out something. In that context, i think that him was a relief. Life magazine was very beloved, a very trusted magazine. At the time they were decent, respectful people. They had a relationship with the Kennedy Family. Moment,he felt, in that that this might offer him a way out of this situation. To someonetrust it or to an institution that would treated respectfully, but also not have to keep it. And that is what happened. Much time toke too go into the details, you can read the book. [laughter] alexandra if you want to. But i will just say that over the course of the weekend, it was sold on saturday morning and the right was sold on monday. There was an unbelievable frenzy in office on saturday. A scene that i describe in great detail what the reporters desperately trying to get their hands on a film and tried to convince my grandfather to sell. O them and not to richard it is a rather colorful episode with dan rathers that occurred on monday. I would just leave that they are. That wait,things there is one missing here. This is a low bit out of order. One of the things that made this story complicated this is missing a slight, that is interesting how that happens. One of the things that made this story very difficult for me to ake on was that there was moral dilemma at the heart of it. A moral dilemma that my grandfather was very much aware of i am just going to go back one. That my grandfather was very much aware of, and that reverberated through our family, even though we cannot talk about it. That was the obvious thing. Does one ultimately, financially profit from a National Tragedy like this without taking a moral hit . This was something that plagued my grandfather. What to do, what to do . He knew he needed to get rid of it. It also represented a financial opportunity. The truth is that he grew up incredibly poor in russia and anyone can understand how hard it would have been to walk away in that moment. Yes, it felt wrong. There was something about it unpalatable to him and contrary to his values. Struggled enormously over those days trying to figure out what to do. Did, i thinkhat he is that he walk the line. By that i mean he did sell it to life magazine for 150,000. He made life promise to treat the film with dignity and good taste, which is within the contract. You can stop and imagine a with a major magazine that requires they handled this film with dignity and good taste. That is the last time that ever happened. [laughter] alexandra i can tell you that right now. Also that they would defend the copyright. Event the film from being exploited or sensationalize, or from being widely distributed with illegal copies. He also decided to donate 25,000 to the widow of the officer who were shot in the texas theater. I think he was trying to find a balance. Nd a not to give it away or walk away from the money, but also not to sell it to the highest ridder bitter. To put certain things in place with the money that he had. Balance would be repeated throughout our familys life. Every time we had to deal with the film and face this kind of dilemma, that was more or less the approach our family took. The middle section of the book i am going to shift gears here because for 12 years, from 1963 to 1975, the film was owned by life magazine, not by our family. Of the great things that happen in the search of my research was that i went to life and i asked if i could see all of the files related to the film, fully expecting them to say no. They just turned them over. That was unbelievable. Up finding in these hundreds of pages was this very revealing, i think, important story about the beginning of the ine of the zapruder film america. And the dilemma thats rolled around it from the very beginning, which only grew greater and greater and greater over the years. Some of you will recognize these images of life magazine. The first one printed on november 29 in the issue about the president s assassination. This one in color from the memorial edition. From the very beginning, life magazine faced its own dilemma, which was how to use the zapruder film with dignity. How to balance the publics orto see the images desire to see these images, with a very strong Editorial Board feeling it was an appropriate. Which they were at the time. The American Public should not see them he can they were disrespectful to the president , because they were too violent and too graphic. This became a problem for life magazine for the 12 years they owned it. With each passing year, the pressure grew on life magazine. Later, the conspiracy. A begin to grow and the suspicion that the commission that the conclusions of the commission were inaccurate. The fact that people could not see the film continued to feed was stem that something being held back. In reality, life magazine was not in collusion. The records clearly show that life magazine was not in collusion with the federal government died hide something from the American People. Reflectingre really a time where this was a strong sense of people should not see this. As at change they were protecting their financial and commercial interest in the film. They did not have a way to show it as a film and they did not want to give it to somebody else like cbs news, for example, who wanted to see it. Instead, they kind of sat on it. The more they sat on it, the more frenzied the desire grew to see the film. All of this is even more complicated by the fact and i am going to this is just a little sense of some of the documents. All of this was further complicated by the fact that, gradually, starting in the late 1960s, versions of the film began to leak out. People began to see it. The they saw it, because of way that the film looked, it did not look like what the commission concluded. You all know what i am talking about. It looked like the president was hit in the front of the head to even if you believed he was hit in the back of the head, it still looks like he was hit in the front of the head. There was this intrinsic timeem, which was, every someone saw it, it seemed to be further confirmation of the fact that life magazine was suppressing the film because it did not conform to the findings of the commission. These are the outlines of the tremendous tension that took place inside life magazine. His rising pressure Walter Cronkite went on the air and criticized life magazine for not making it public. Bootlegs begin to get out. There were a while life magazine. Eventually, in 1969, there was clay shawade trial. Clay shawusinessmen of conspiring to kill the president. To get the subpoena film and to show it. This is now 1969. The first time the film was ever shown in a public setting, in the courtroom as you can see, this is the headline of the item. To grandfather was compelled testify. He did not want to testify but he did. One of the outcomes of this trial was that jim garrison, who got a hold of the copy of the film through his subpoena, set about making as many bootleg copies as he possibly could and distributing them as widely as he could. One of the interesting things for me about this is that, of course this was not what our family wanted, but there is a way in which you can understand that the people who are bootlegging the film and the people distributing it really believe that there was a coverup. This was truth that was being suppressed. Thing about this book that i found so fascinating in the end at someit is summit a different junctures there are people who vehemently disagree with one another but no one is really wrong. People reflecting different ates, different values are changing culture, but ultimately, the desire to see this film was something that cannot be suppressed and life magazine was not any position to make it available. There is a conundrum that got played out over and over again. This is a photograph of our grandfather who died on august 30 19 70. Five years later the film was returned to our family. It was Geraldo Rivera aired a blue leg copy on his program. As the first time it was seen on National Television amid this thatasing pressure of there was a conspiracy. That the film showed the truth. That it was made public, the truth would always be suppressed. Life magazine had really had it. There was nothing in it for them. They could not use the film because they cannot go on keeping with the terms of their contract. There was no way to use the film. It cannot be shown in good taste, it is not in good taste. There was no way for them to do it. They kept trying. Date try to do a documentary or partner with the hollywood director, but it always somehow fizzled. All the criticism coming at them from all of these different quarters, then finally the boulay, which way the which they were contractually obligated to defend the copyright. No one could defend the copyright. One of them said, i get it from all sides. I get it from the networks, i get it from the public, i get it s. M the zapruder they had it and they decided they would get rid of it. There is another part of the story. Is sick she is shaking her head that she knows what is coming. Thattory was always known life magazine returned his story and we paid a dollar. Is thatple did not know the force behind that decision was my grandmother. Force is the right word, she was a force of nature. For all those who knew her it, you can testify to that. She fell very very strongly that the film should be back in our family. That this is what her husband would have wanted, that it was our responsibility. Perhaps it might have some value someday. No one else in the family wanted to deal with it and might magazine would have been happy to donate it to the library of congress by the national archives. Grandmother bugged him until negotiate agreed to for the return of the film. I love this because this is how history really happens. It really does happen with just inside families are a person to person my grandmother is not a historical person. She exerted her will in a certain way that completely change the life of the film and had all of these reverberating effects that no one could ever have been able to anticipate. That only now are we able to look back and to see. When my father got the film back he inherited all the problems that life magazine had not dealt with. , how to make it available to the public, on what terms, or for how much money, when, why, who . All i can say is that this is the last thing in the world that he wanted to do. But, he did it. The next chapter, which is really the last chapter of the life of the film is very difficultis problem of figuring out, inside our family and really my father, most of all, how to respond to the growing public demand and access to the film, while also respecting our families values, our grandfathers wishes to the film, in the sense that it should not be exploited, its sensational live, it should be used with respect. There is no clearcut answer. This is something that i wrote about in the book. It in the public domain, which is what a lot of people wanted. They made it available to everyone for free under any circumstances. He said to me, one of the few things he ever said to me when i asked this question, he said, then it would be on hats and tshirts on the National Mall and we cannot have that, we cannot allow that. Name, this is your grandfather. We cannot allow that to happen. Hand, he also cannot say no like life magazine did to everyone and refused to allow people to see it. That time has passed. What was the middle ground . Was to respondnd individually to every single request. Hundreds of requests a year. Every single one. The other thing that he did not want was to be a sensor. He did not want to be in the position of deciding whether or not it is right for someone to use it or wrong for someone to use it. Someone had to bear that responsibility. It was a thankless task. There was no approach that he could take. As a result, what he said about doing was to develop a policy that really reflected our family. For free tovailable anybody who wanted it for scholarly purposes or educational purposes. Kids writing the report on president kennedy. A desire for it, he charged for it. The last thing that i will say about that is that, the other thing about the life of the film and writing this book is that times kept changing. Film t just that the it had to reflect our families values. , afterculture changed following watergate, for example. A rise in a sense of the possibility of conspiracies that were true, covered up by the government, and changing technology. Thatf these things meant with each passing year, these questions have been looked at a new. It was not make a decision and hang onto it. Had to bemething that decided, decided again, then decided again. How am i doing for time . I am ok . I know, she is in charge. Everything was sort of going along. My dad had more or less figured out a way to deal with the film. I went to all of the legal records, all of the license request, every single one from the year from 1975 to 1992. What i found was exactly in the way that my grandmother had shaped history unwittingly. My dad secretary shaped history to, because he deferred to her very often what he did not want to make a decision. He would allow her to make a decision. Something functioning inside our family and a very small scale way. Until 1992. Movie 1992 stones came out. They requested the use of the film, it was granted and it was, as you all know, oliver stones that led to the passage of the jfk at on october 26, 1992. The result of our family of the passage of the jfk act, which is the film that was put in the safekeeping and the national uphive in 1978 became caught in this effort to make everything that belong to the federal government that was related to the kennedy assassination available to the American People. Question. Ed a did the law mean that the federal government was taking the zapruder under the law of the constitution . Taking possession of it. For those of you who do not know, i will just briefly give you this very brief outline. Yunnan this works, right . If you have a house and the government decides they want to build a highway through it and tear it down, they have to give you just compensation for your home. How do they determine just compensation . Comparables. Cut it if im that, how much are the houses worth on your street. Word of the comparables for the zapruder film. What will happen if the government decides it will take the original film and pay our it . Ly just compensation for this was the last thing my father wanted. He did not want the federal government to take the film. Not because he did not want them to have the film, but as he said to me several times, why would they take a film they already have . It is in the national archives. It will not move. It is already there. But if they take it they will trigger this process by which the american taxpayers will be on the hook for just compensation. Dad was, ironies of ironies, a tax attorney. He understood exactly what this meant in the way that another person would not. This is a very difficult part of the book to write because i adored my father. I wanted to be fair and truthful. To paint disingenuous him at someone who did not care about the money. But the truth of the matter is, when it came to the original our family never thought about the financial value of that as an artifact. It honestly had never occurred to anyone. When this happen, it suddenly through our family into this dilemma of, allow the government to take it, fight the taking, do not fight the taking, fight for just compensation, dont fight for just compensation, which was a battle that went on for nine years. Thee are just a handful of articles that were published. I was in my 20s when this was happening, so i was a little more aware, although not fully aware of just how complicated this was. Here, i think it is important to say that, we were always very aare that our grandfather was private citizen thrust into a private role. We had this strange name, zapruder, that is not easy to dodge. When people talk about the thumb, they are not talking about somebody else. Talking aboutsly us, not the miller or the smith film. Our name ands of attachment to our name in this film is also part of the story. It was not just our families values, but your name and the virtue of the good name really mean something to people. It certainly meant something to us. The other side of it is that our family was criticized in ways that were very painful. I reallyomething that had to take on in the writing of this book. Not in a way that meant being instantly defensive, but trying to understand, what was the other side . What were people criticizing . What were they reacting to . Is there something on the other side that was legitimate . What does my fathers point of view represent . Interviews came from and talking to people who knew my father and trying to think of what i knew about him in order to get the fullest possible picture of these very real dilemmas that do not have easy answers. The very last chapter of the centers on the arbitration hearing. Families are not a real not able to come to an agreement with the federal government. We were very far apart on price for just compensation, which i know will come as a giant shock to everyone in this room. It was agreed to have an arbitration hearing. The last chapter of the book is about this hearing. One of the things that are so fascinating is that, while it is true that it is about money, it also is really about what the zapruder had become. What does it represent in American Life . What does it mean to American People . How did its complex history shape it as an icon . How did its own story make it what it is . And how do you assign a monetary value to something that has become a National Memory of a tragedy that was the lightning rod for so many issues around media ethics, copyrights, that was used in film, literature and art as a sort of touch point for issues around visual truths . And what we are even looking at what we but that a film, and why this particular film does not do with film is supposed to do, which is to answer the question of what happened to the president. Partf these things became of this dialogue and debate about what film represented. With that, i am going to finish my reading a brief part inthe epilogue to the book which i attempted to sum up what the public legacy of the film is. The private legacy, for our family, there was something about this book. I did not do it for this reason, but i understood afterwards the Everyone Needs a story. You need to understand who you forces thatd the shaped who you are. I understood my parents, grandparents, uncles amnd aunts, they were so wounded by assassinationon that they did not want to talk about it. The net result for our generation was, we did not know the story. There was something about putting it into the light. Looking at the moral dilemma among other things and i think it was important for all of us to move past this idea there was something to hide or be ashamed rather thater at the end of the day we were just people. We did the best we could. The things i always come back to theseey dealt with problems of humanity. They took it seriously and they did the best they could. That is the end of the story for us. I willc legacy finish by reading these two pa ges and i will be happy to take questions. What is the public legacy . What is the compelling lore that historians,chers, writers and journalists, students, hobbyists and kennedy touchreturned to it as a 10. Stone. Film hasder contradictions. It is initial evidence that refuses to solve the mystery of who murdered the president and why and how. It shows the course of history changing under the influence of a single bullet. It is potentially the most important historical film ever movie. D it is a home it is film on a plastic reel that turned out to be worth 16 million. It is private and public, gruesome and terrible but we cannot stop looking. The deepest, most compelling conundrum of the film is an ecidental x essential xxesntial one. Day. A sunny a handsome husband and his wife waving and then he is dead. Dead. Alive and he is she is a wife and a widow. She is grace itself and then she along the back of the car. There is the zapruder film. It exists and we cannot turn away. We wish desperately that it co uld end differently every time. Perhaps it is the same impulse that makes us watch the challenger or the twin towers. It is because we resist the towledge that hope turns despair in an instant and we need to confront that truth to see the thing we think cannot happen to touch the limits of what we know about life and to remind ourselves of the fragility of it all. Thank you. [applause] thank you. That was amazing and amazingly sincere, genuine and moving. We have opportunity for questions. Were being filmed for this evening by cspan. When you ask a question, please wait for the microphone so that we can record your own message for posterity. We will argue over the copyright later. Mind, try would not to face the camera. I hope that will not intimidate people. We have a gentleman here. I will run the mic over here to him. Andy name is paul peters my dad was one of the doctors that took care of kennedy when he was assassinated. I answered the phone with kennedy was assassinated. The call from the parkland er, dad said i need to talk to your mom, the president has been shot. When you show the picture of the esquire magazine, with that frame from your grandfathers film. Was the 50th anniversary of the assassination occurred, my dad had one ofaway but i the main positions talk to the club about his opinion on the assassination. As he was giving the presentation, a guy the crowd stood up and said can i come to the podium. I am john connollys son. We were showing frame by frame pictures of the assassination and he wanted to point out something he thought was important for the conspiracy theories. When john kennedy was shot, he grabbed his throat. And supposedly that same bullet went through john connolly, through his lung and rested in his ribs. If you look at the frame, the frame from esquire is the one to see. He is turning around and looking already been has shot. The lly said he swore that did not hit him. Kennedyble to look at with the hands on his throat. I have heard this. That connolly said that. I am not versed in the ins and outs of what people have said or what they believe, i believe it is very telling. There are inconsistencies throughout the record that im not sure would be resolved. Both my dad and dr. Mcclellan were standing besides jfk in his dying moments and both have different interpretations of what happened to him. That is the thing about the film, you can look at it and look at it and people are looking at the same document and seeing Different Things and interpreting it differently. Something that i did not talk too much about but one of the interesting things was the Cultural Impact of the film. It began to reflect a postmodern dilemma. What are the limits of visual representation . What is truth . How can you have a record of what happened that does not show you what happened . Or it showed you what happened in the largest sense but not in the way you need it to. Is amous movie blowup great commentary on this. Many people over the years reflected on living in a time when we do not have consensus over the basic things that are before us. Yes . Wondering, how old were you when you look at your dad and set by the people look at me funny when i say my name . I do not think i ever said that because you know how it is you grow up and you dont know anything other than what you grew up with. I dont remember ever learning about the film. It wasnt like they sat me down and said we have something to tell you. I always knew about it. Is i thing i can say began the book with this after the prologue about the home movie. I remember when i was 10 or 11 years old, i went into my School Library and got a copy of William Manchesters death of a president and i read the what happened. I was just like any 10yearold girl, my grandfather was famous. This was the coolest thing in the entire world. I had no sense of the gravity of this and this is what my parents impressed upon us. This is not something to brag about. This was a terrible National Tragedy. We would have preferred to have nothing to do with it. That was the message i got very loud and clear. Messageay that was a that was very hard to overcome in the decision to write this book. One of the hardest things about writing this book was going so much against the prevailing culture and our family. Even though i asked my family how they felt about it and at the end of the day the decision was mine. To confront it and the public about it was a difficult choice to make, one that i do not regret now but brought with it a great deal of complicated times. One of the things you talk about is the way in which a single human life can interact with a great moment of explicitly moment unexpectedly. Now that the book has come out, had he interacted with other people i know there are no comparables but other people who have comparable experiences where they were next to history ve been able to learn from their experiences. People like this gentleman who asked the question before, i have found there have been many people who have been near this history and proximate to it in the way i am. The amazing thing to me about this story is how much it lives in peoples lives. And icently somewher was in ohio and paul landis, who was the secret Service Agent in the car behind the president , came to this talk. I met many people whose lives were changed by this assassination. My experience with that was in was very humbling because my own connection with it was so distant. I am also amazed by how nowhere more than in texas but how he lives in people. I gave a talk in houston and there was a woman who came and had a baggie with the ticker day she had gotten on the of the parade. She wanted to show it to me. She started crying talking about this day and how much it meant to her. That is something very touching and also surprising that it l ives on in this way for people. Oswald our father think worked alone . Both my grandfather and my father believes that oswald was the lone gunman. Years oldther was 58 when this happened and was a deep patriot. The idea that he would believe anything other than the one commission was unthinkable Warren Commission was unthinkable. He was part of a generation that believed the government was true. He died in 1970 and he did not have any reason to revisit that. My father was not a person who tended to believe in conspiracies. He thought this whole thing with the ozone layer was ridiculous. Really serious but he was not someone who was cynical. He was a deeply optimistic and humanist type of person. Value. That at face whether he would have changed his views, i do not know. I always laugh a little bit when people ask what we think because you might as well pluck someone off the street and ask them what they think happened. We have no special knowledge. Our relation to this is through the film. For most of our lives, we have known less of them as people about the film and about what happened. It is not something we have been students of until now. I think it would be interesting to the how many people to see how many people parhe room were in dallas at the parade . Or at the parade . Raise your hands. Thats great. Thank you for asking. Did your father have any commentary about jack ruby . Him shooting oswald afterwards. I do not recall anything my father or grandfather said about jack ruby. One of the things i learned in the course of this work was the fact that jack ruby shot and kil led oswald was a huge game changer in the life of the film. Film took on the role of the socalled unimpeachable witness, which was problematic. Manywas an event that had repercussions but one was it elevated the significance of the waysand some would say in that were not particularly helpful because it does not definitively show something that we consider a consensus about what happened. I arrived a little bit late so i apologize if i missed your comments. Did the Kennedy Family ever reach out to the zapruder family of this . During all not really. Jackie kennedys office recommended our grandfather the recommended by William Manchester antiqua operate with efforts to write the book and cooperate with efforts to write the book. That is all i know of. But one of the things, i think at least for our generation, we would have tried hard to avoid forcing a confrontation with the Kennedy Family. We knewomfortable our film was their familys tragedy. We were never able to forget that. A weird thing happened, when my twin brother graduated when i graduated from high school, ted kennedy gave the speech. Assumedher said that he he left when they got to the zs. The last thing we wanted was Teddy Kennedy sitting there hearing alexandra zapruder, michael zapruder. Michael assumed that he left by the time they got to the zapruder. I have a question. Dad wasentleman whose one of the doctors. Was catholic, they called a priest for last rites. Do you know if they let the priest into the operating room to do that . Did either your father or his friends mention that . I was told they kept him alive until he could receive last ri tes. Keno not know if hes spo to anything like that. No. Im off the hook for this one. I know he did not leave the emergency room and he was dead when he got there. His lungs were still breathing but the gunshot wound got his brain stem. He passed away quickly before he was there. I know the priest did get the last rites. He never went to the operating room. Great presentation. Really enjoyed it. You seem like your family is kind of private. Did your grandfather tell your father that he regrets having shot the film are bringing the camera that day . Isnt that ironic . I do not know that he ever said anything specifically about the camera but he definitely said many times that he wished he had not taken the film. My understanding is he was really traumatized by what he had seen. He had nightmares for years. He was not only concerned about butexploitation of the film the fact of having seen the murder at such close range state him. N stayed with dread theto anniversary of the assassination. Movies very few home after that. I would not say it ruined his life. There were many grandchildren born after that. I think it is safe to say that he regretted it and he wished it had been no one or anybody but him. I want to still the prerogative of one last question. I love that no one asked about the no when asked about the files. Another, itrian to is hard to avoid noting that a person such as yourself, who grew up surrounded by a primary document witness to history chose to make your career working with primary documents. They first book being about holocaust. Say my daughter said the next one has to be rainbows and unicorns. Is itthe thing for me was relevant vote for my first my first bookor and this one. Somewhere along the way, i have this sense that people in the past live in the fullness of their time the way we do. In the past, the complexities, nuance and dilemmas is real for people and we have this tendency to look back and tell the stories of the past two flatten them. And simplifyt the work i do as a writer is to inhabit that past and that is something i did with these diaries collected. That was the tremendous challenge of this book. To get past the headlines and oversimplification and judgments to think what were the dilemmas . Timeid they live in their with this object . How did, even the people who were critical of our family and itmned our family is true that work is done around primary sources but it is ultimately about people. That is what is interesting to me. Thank you for the question. [applause] let me thank you all for comi ng and remind you there are copies of the book you can take home and take home with a signature. Thank you for coming. 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