Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts JFK Assassination

A culture, that you cant kill an idea with a bullet. American history tv. This weekend only on cspan 3. Since july of 2017 have released thousands of documents relatesed to jfk assassination. Many of these had been withheld by the cia for alleged National Security reasons. This is the act of 1982 and will continue into 2018. Though some of the documents contain redactions. Up next on american artifacts from 2014, our visit to the National Archives to learn about the assassination records and to see some of the iconic artifacts such as Lee Harvey Oswalds rifle. The socalled magic bullet. And original film of the assassination taken by zapruder. Our guide maintains the records. Assassination records collection was created because of the president jfk act of 1992. So a short history. Since the time of the assassination there has been numerous official investigations starting with the Warren Commission, and then some congressional investigations, Church Committee looked into it. And then House Select Committee on assassinations. Then in the early 90s there was a movie that came out by oliver stone and at the end of that movie he said all the records had been open and available. My name is oliver stone. And i assure you it is with pleasure and some pride that i appear before the subcommittee before to urge the passage of house joint resolution 454. Quote, to provide for the expeditious disclosure of records relevant to the assassination of president john f. Kennedy. And so the purpose of the act was to make sure that all of the records that were considered assassination related were collected, sent to the National Archives, and opened to the greatest extent possible. There was an independent agency created, it was temporary, whose job it was to make sure the agencies were complying with this. And also to determine, make sure that the records were open to the greatest extent possible. So in response to that act, we created the collection, and the collection has been here at the National Archives ever since. We estimate that there is about 5 million textural pages, so pieces of paper. We also have photographs and some films, audio recordings, and the like. If the public or researchers want access to these items, how does that work . Most of the textural records all they need to do is come here and ask to have access. There are various finding aids available on our website, and then all of that data was transferred here and we made that available to the public and so you can search on an item level the records trat in the collection and if you see something that youd like the see you can come here, ask to see it on our Business Hours when were available. It box will be pulled from our hold area and made available in our Research Room here that National Archives in college park. So here we have three items which you requested. Unlike it physical art facts we were able to accommodate you and make these available to you because these are basically textural documents, not physical art facts of the collection. So the first item that you requested was Commission Exhibit 381 a. Which is this item right here. This is a bus transfer which was found in the pocket of Lee Harvey Oswald after he was arrested. And was obtained by the Dallas Police, eventually given to the fbi and became a Commission Exhibit of the Warren Commission. The second item that you requested is Lee Harvey Oswalds address book. So this is a custom made container made by our conservation staff and again this is acid free. This is mylar and got this handy little lift so that you can get it out of its well without having to pull on it. You can see theres a Commission Exhibit number 18. And it has all of his hand written items, including a map. Addresses and telephone numbers. That you would expect. The final item is a map of mexico city. Oswald made trip to mexico city prior to the assassination. And brought this map home and this was acquired by Dallas Police and the fbi and eventually the Warren Commission as well. On this side of the map you have a smaller map with tourists spots which are identified on the side, which you can tell certain things were circled. It it was like that when we received it. Obviously we wouldnt add anything like that. The back side is a larger map. Again with several items circled. I have found in secondary sources people have written that these some of the items that there circled were actually the embassies of cuba and the u. S. Qatar but i have not found the primary document that would document specifically what is circled on here. Of course the context for these are all documented well in the Warren Commission report. In order for something to become a Commission Exhibit t would have been discussed in the testimony taken by the Warren Commission or referenced in the warr eren commission report. So 50 years later are there still classified items and how does it declassified prausz esworks . The assassination records review board, which was it independent agency had had a unique power. They had the capability of over ruling the agencies even on a classification issue and the only appeal it agencies had had was to the president of the united states. So while the review board was in business, they made a final determination. Applied its balanced judgment, we found little reason to continue to protect these records, in fact many we found should not have been protected in the 1960s and this happened in an era where National Security was heightened. However there were a few, still some, that remain classified in part or in full but if you read the act it says 25 years after it passing of the act everything must be made available and so that will be october of 2017. And so were already actually gearing up a process to start getting the withdrawn material processed and ready for release. What particular challenges does this collection present to the archives that other collections might not . Well, one of the challenges is that we have a lot of physical art facts and i mean things other than paper. We have the contents of the boarding room where oswald was living, even things like his flipflops and odd things like that. And its actually fairly unusual the National Archives does have some art facts but were mostly a paper agency and because of the huge interest in this, we have numerous people who want to have access to these materials and so theres always a tension between conservation and access. And so thats probably been our biggest challenge and the way weve addressed that is by trying to provide as much access as we can to still pictures and film of the most popular artifacts that are in the collection so that people can see them and have their Research Questions answered without actually looking at the actual physical artifacts. Because every time we make an actual item available, were risking a bit of the conservation of the item and thats why for the press we have provided broll video of the artifacts themselves which we did prior to the 50th anniversary. So here we are in one of our conservation labs with one of our conserveteres and she is going to show us, which is fbi exhibit b1, which is oswalds wallet. Including the contents. Im getog answer a question a lot of people have which is what is the stain that is on portions of those items . That is from the finger print chemical that was used by the fbi to try to obtain finger prints. It ended up staining the art fact it itself. So i know some people think it looks like blood. This would have been in oswalds possession when he was arrested but not when he was shot. And here shes laying out some of the items that were found, which we have incapsulated in mylar and some of the items in the wallet were things like his Social Security card, service notice. A service id because of course he was in the marine corps at one time. Also fair play for cuba, Committee Identification card that was an organization he belonged to. Lets see what else is interesting in here. Other kinds of id cards, Public Library card. And so all of these are just it contents of a wallet like you would have in your own wallet whatever you have right now. This is something we wouldnt normally make available to researchers and thats why we have filmed it. Mostly because of the wallet itself. Even more than the contents. You also had had photographs that woman in the picture is his wife, marina. And there you can see izhad marine corps photograph as well. So the next exhibit that our conserveter is showing you is the camera used by mr. Zu pruder to make a very famous film of the assassination which probably most people have seen. Its in a case or we have a case to it. As you can see shes putting gloves on. We generally dont use gloves with paper items but with art facts it is common practice to wear a cotton glove. We retain the case but do not store the camera in a case. What you can see is the acidfree box the camera is stored in and the material thats inside the box to protect it as well. So here you will see that says on this label on the outside of the box. Its a common means we have of identifying the item so we can keep control of them. Youll see the record group for the records of the Warren Commission and our records are arranged primarily by record groups which is the organization. So these records are just like all the other. Maintain them in the same manner. So the next item is the tshirt that oswald was wearing when he was shot. Again its part of the Warren Commission records. Youll see it says fbi exhibit. And then it was transferred on to the Warren Commission and then eventually to the National Archives. I will say weve had the records of the Warren Commission well before the passing of the jfk act and those records were about 98 open prior to it passing of the act. They have been open here for many years. And so weve had these art facts for a very long time as well. You will sometimes see that all are initials. Those initials were used as a means of documenting the transfer of custody from one organization to another like Dallas Police to the fbi or between individuals within the fbi. And each one of these a art facts you could find documentation in our files that would tell you more about the significance of the artifacts. And again this is the black sweater oswald was wearing when he was shot. Again we have the our conservetors have put these in acidfree boxes with acid free tissue to preserve them and any labelling we have preserved every art fact of the art fact. These are all original labels. National archives would not have placed these labels on here and finally this is the shirt oswald was wearing when he was shot. Of course he was shot in the custody of the Dallas Police being moved from one place to the other and it was being filmed. So it was unusual. A lot of press available. The conservatives here have experienced pretty much everything we need them to but if necessary they will reach out to an expert but thavl rr are been trained to deal with multiple types of materials. This item is Commission Exhibit 126 and it was a blue bag that was found in oswalds effect. It was picked up at his residence on north beckley street by Dallas Police officers and so this was a tag that was affixed by them. It says charge murder there. Right. And the thing to remember the time kennedy was assassinated it was not a federal crime to kill the president and so he would have gone on trial for murder in texas. And so the Dallas Police were investigating it. Does the archives have to work with the Dallas Police . No, because all these items were transferred to the fbi and then it Warren Commission that would have given it Commission Exhibit number 126 and then finally to the archives. But it was within it custody of u. S. Federal government prior to transfer. We would not have it records of the Dallas Police they not transferred into that custody. This is the famous rifle. Again you can see the custom box that was created by the National Archives preservation staff. It has its own Commission Exhibit number, 139. So the next item is this blanket and this is the blanket that was found in the house of ruth pain and ruth pain was the woman with whom oswalds wife and daughter were staying that time and oswald had stored some of his effects, i believe in their garage. And so it is believed he actually wrapped the rifle in this blanket while it was in ruth panes garage and it was found after it assassination. So next were going to look at oswalds revolver. So after the president was assassinated, there was also a Police Officer who was killed. And he was killed by oswald using this revolver. And the interesting thing i think a lot of people dont know is that oswald was initially arrested for the murder of officer tibt, not for the assassination of president kennedy. And it was own lewhen he was in Police Custody that they put together that they were looking for someone who was missing from the depository whose name was Lee Harvey Oswald and that oh, we already had him in custody because they had had him in custody for the killing of tibbett. And so this revolver is significant for several reasons and this is the shirt he was wearing when he was arrested. And here youll see our conserveter handling it very carefully. So its just another piece of evidence that was used to connect oswald to the assassnation and there you can see initials put on the shirt itself and everything im telling you now i just know because of working with the records. Anyone can come in, they can read the Warren Commission report and most everything im saying is in the Warren Commission report. They can look at it original fbi files, the lab files of the Lab Technicians and scientists who worked at the fbi, did ballistics testing and all that. Theyre all part of the collection and someone could come in and look through them, themselves. But even when you said earlier thats the rifle that oswald used to kill the president , there were people who would say thats not true. Thats right and so what im saying is the opinion of the Warren Commission and i guess i should state i have no opinion one way or another on this. But thats how its identified in our records and thats how i will identify it to you. This is gray zipper jacket. This also tied oswald to the murder of tibbett because according to the Warren Commission this jacket was found sort of thrown in the ditch near where tibbett was killed and in the route people saw oswald or the who they thought was oswald taking after the killing of tibbett. Marina, oswalds wife, verified this jacket was oswalds jacket. So if you lead to Warren Commission report, they will give their opinion on this, that it does tie him to the killing of tibbett. So this is probably one of the more famous bullets in existence. It is sometimes referred to as the magic bullet. I refer to it as Commission Exhibit 399 because that was the number assigned to it by the Warren Commission. It was found on the hospital stretcher. It is believes that this is the bullet that first hit president kennedy, exited through his neck and actually hit governor connolly who was sitting in front of the president. After going through his body, his arm, it was lodged into his thigh. And one thing to let people know is we have high quality, High Resolution images of most of these art facts available on www. Archives. Gov through our access catalogue. When i try to give as many views of this as pae possible because people have questions about every aspect of this bullet, as you can imagine. And that container, is that a special bullet container . Its a container that weve created ourselves in order to have it in a container where you can see it but that it is a plug on the top and foam on the bottom so it can be in there without rattling around. But you could turn it it and view it from different angles. So its just a way of conserving it but trying to keep it so that if you needed to pull it out for some reason you would actually visibly see it. We had special housings made by the conservators here that archive s for our various bulle fragments and bullets associated with this case. So once limousine was back in washington, of course it was gone over very carefully and for were bullet fragments found in the limousine and thats what youre going to see here. Very small bullet fragments and theres the Commission Exhibit number, 840. And then this is a larger fragment that was also found. A separate National Security<\/a> reasons. This is the act of 1982 and will continue into 2018. Though some of the documents contain redactions. Up next on american artifacts from 2014, our visit to the National Archives<\/a> to learn about the assassination records and to see some of the iconic artifacts such as Lee Harvey Oswalds<\/a> rifle. The socalled magic bullet. And original film of the assassination taken by zapruder. Our guide maintains the records. Assassination records collection was created because of the president jfk act of 1992. So a short history. Since the time of the assassination there has been numerous official investigations starting with the Warren Commission<\/a>, and then some congressional investigations, Church Committee<\/a> looked into it. And then House Select Committee<\/a> on assassinations. Then in the early 90s there was a movie that came out by oliver stone and at the end of that movie he said all the records had been open and available. My name is oliver stone. And i assure you it is with pleasure and some pride that i appear before the subcommittee before to urge the passage of house joint resolution 454. Quote, to provide for the expeditious disclosure of records relevant to the assassination of president john f. Kennedy. And so the purpose of the act was to make sure that all of the records that were considered assassination related were collected, sent to the National Archives<\/a>, and opened to the greatest extent possible. There was an independent agency created, it was temporary, whose job it was to make sure the agencies were complying with this. And also to determine, make sure that the records were open to the greatest extent possible. So in response to that act, we created the collection, and the collection has been here at the National Archives<\/a> ever since. We estimate that there is about 5 million textural pages, so pieces of paper. We also have photographs and some films, audio recordings, and the like. If the public or researchers want access to these items, how does that work . Most of the textural records all they need to do is come here and ask to have access. There are various finding aids available on our website, and then all of that data was transferred here and we made that available to the public and so you can search on an item level the records trat in the collection and if you see something that youd like the see you can come here, ask to see it on our Business Hours<\/a> when were available. It box will be pulled from our hold area and made available in our Research Room<\/a> here that National Archives<\/a> in college park. So here we have three items which you requested. Unlike it physical art facts we were able to accommodate you and make these available to you because these are basically textural documents, not physical art facts of the collection. So the first item that you requested was Commission Exhibit<\/a> 381 a. Which is this item right here. This is a bus transfer which was found in the pocket of Lee Harvey Oswald<\/a> after he was arrested. And was obtained by the Dallas Police<\/a>, eventually given to the fbi and became a Commission Exhibit<\/a> of the Warren Commission<\/a>. The second item that you requested is Lee Harvey Oswalds<\/a> address book. So this is a custom made container made by our conservation staff and again this is acid free. This is mylar and got this handy little lift so that you can get it out of its well without having to pull on it. You can see theres a Commission Exhibit<\/a> number 18. And it has all of his hand written items, including a map. Addresses and telephone numbers. That you would expect. The final item is a map of mexico city. Oswald made trip to mexico city prior to the assassination. And brought this map home and this was acquired by Dallas Police<\/a> and the fbi and eventually the Warren Commission<\/a> as well. On this side of the map you have a smaller map with tourists spots which are identified on the side, which you can tell certain things were circled. It it was like that when we received it. Obviously we wouldnt add anything like that. The back side is a larger map. Again with several items circled. I have found in secondary sources people have written that these some of the items that there circled were actually the embassies of cuba and the u. S. Qatar but i have not found the primary document that would document specifically what is circled on here. Of course the context for these are all documented well in the Warren Commission<\/a> report. In order for something to become a Commission Exhibit<\/a> t would have been discussed in the testimony taken by the Warren Commission<\/a> or referenced in the warr eren commission report. So 50 years later are there still classified items and how does it declassified prausz esworks . The assassination records review board, which was it independent agency had had a unique power. They had the capability of over ruling the agencies even on a classification issue and the only appeal it agencies had had was to the president of the united states. So while the review board was in business, they made a final determination. Applied its balanced judgment, we found little reason to continue to protect these records, in fact many we found should not have been protected in the 1960s and this happened in an era where National Security<\/a> was heightened. However there were a few, still some, that remain classified in part or in full but if you read the act it says 25 years after it passing of the act everything must be made available and so that will be october of 2017. And so were already actually gearing up a process to start getting the withdrawn material processed and ready for release. What particular challenges does this collection present to the archives that other collections might not . Well, one of the challenges is that we have a lot of physical art facts and i mean things other than paper. We have the contents of the boarding room where oswald was living, even things like his flipflops and odd things like that. And its actually fairly unusual the National Archives<\/a> does have some art facts but were mostly a paper agency and because of the huge interest in this, we have numerous people who want to have access to these materials and so theres always a tension between conservation and access. And so thats probably been our biggest challenge and the way weve addressed that is by trying to provide as much access as we can to still pictures and film of the most popular artifacts that are in the collection so that people can see them and have their Research Questions<\/a> answered without actually looking at the actual physical artifacts. Because every time we make an actual item available, were risking a bit of the conservation of the item and thats why for the press we have provided broll video of the artifacts themselves which we did prior to the 50th anniversary. So here we are in one of our conservation labs with one of our conserveteres and she is going to show us, which is fbi exhibit b1, which is oswalds wallet. Including the contents. Im getog answer a question a lot of people have which is what is the stain that is on portions of those items . That is from the finger print chemical that was used by the fbi to try to obtain finger prints. It ended up staining the art fact it itself. So i know some people think it looks like blood. This would have been in oswalds possession when he was arrested but not when he was shot. And here shes laying out some of the items that were found, which we have incapsulated in mylar and some of the items in the wallet were things like his Social Security<\/a> card, service notice. A service id because of course he was in the marine corps at one time. Also fair play for cuba, Committee Identification<\/a> card that was an organization he belonged to. Lets see what else is interesting in here. Other kinds of id cards, Public Library<\/a> card. And so all of these are just it contents of a wallet like you would have in your own wallet whatever you have right now. This is something we wouldnt normally make available to researchers and thats why we have filmed it. Mostly because of the wallet itself. Even more than the contents. You also had had photographs that woman in the picture is his wife, marina. And there you can see izhad marine corps photograph as well. So the next exhibit that our conserveter is showing you is the camera used by mr. Zu pruder to make a very famous film of the assassination which probably most people have seen. Its in a case or we have a case to it. As you can see shes putting gloves on. We generally dont use gloves with paper items but with art facts it is common practice to wear a cotton glove. We retain the case but do not store the camera in a case. What you can see is the acidfree box the camera is stored in and the material thats inside the box to protect it as well. So here you will see that says on this label on the outside of the box. Its a common means we have of identifying the item so we can keep control of them. Youll see the record group for the records of the Warren Commission<\/a> and our records are arranged primarily by record groups which is the organization. So these records are just like all the other. Maintain them in the same manner. So the next item is the tshirt that oswald was wearing when he was shot. Again its part of the Warren Commission<\/a> records. Youll see it says fbi exhibit. And then it was transferred on to the Warren Commission<\/a> and then eventually to the National Archives<\/a>. I will say weve had the records of the Warren Commission<\/a> well before the passing of the jfk act and those records were about 98 open prior to it passing of the act. They have been open here for many years. And so weve had these art facts for a very long time as well. You will sometimes see that all are initials. Those initials were used as a means of documenting the transfer of custody from one organization to another like Dallas Police<\/a> to the fbi or between individuals within the fbi. And each one of these a art facts you could find documentation in our files that would tell you more about the significance of the artifacts. And again this is the black sweater oswald was wearing when he was shot. Again we have the our conservetors have put these in acidfree boxes with acid free tissue to preserve them and any labelling we have preserved every art fact of the art fact. These are all original labels. National archives would not have placed these labels on here and finally this is the shirt oswald was wearing when he was shot. Of course he was shot in the custody of the Dallas Police<\/a> being moved from one place to the other and it was being filmed. So it was unusual. A lot of press available. The conservatives here have experienced pretty much everything we need them to but if necessary they will reach out to an expert but thavl rr are been trained to deal with multiple types of materials. This item is Commission Exhibit<\/a> 126 and it was a blue bag that was found in oswalds effect. It was picked up at his residence on north beckley street by Dallas Police<\/a> officers and so this was a tag that was affixed by them. It says charge murder there. Right. And the thing to remember the time kennedy was assassinated it was not a federal crime to kill the president and so he would have gone on trial for murder in texas. And so the Dallas Police<\/a> were investigating it. Does the archives have to work with the Dallas Police<\/a> . No, because all these items were transferred to the fbi and then it Warren Commission<\/a> that would have given it Commission Exhibit<\/a> number 126 and then finally to the archives. But it was within it custody of u. S. Federal government prior to transfer. We would not have it records of the Dallas Police<\/a> they not transferred into that custody. This is the famous rifle. Again you can see the custom box that was created by the National Archives<\/a> preservation staff. It has its own Commission Exhibit<\/a> number, 139. So the next item is this blanket and this is the blanket that was found in the house of ruth pain and ruth pain was the woman with whom oswalds wife and daughter were staying that time and oswald had stored some of his effects, i believe in their garage. And so it is believed he actually wrapped the rifle in this blanket while it was in ruth panes garage and it was found after it assassination. So next were going to look at oswalds revolver. So after the president was assassinated, there was also a Police Officer<\/a> who was killed. And he was killed by oswald using this revolver. And the interesting thing i think a lot of people dont know is that oswald was initially arrested for the murder of officer tibt, not for the assassination of president kennedy. And it was own lewhen he was in Police Custody<\/a> that they put together that they were looking for someone who was missing from the depository whose name was Lee Harvey Oswald<\/a> and that oh, we already had him in custody because they had had him in custody for the killing of tibbett. And so this revolver is significant for several reasons and this is the shirt he was wearing when he was arrested. And here youll see our conserveter handling it very carefully. So its just another piece of evidence that was used to connect oswald to the assassnation and there you can see initials put on the shirt itself and everything im telling you now i just know because of working with the records. Anyone can come in, they can read the Warren Commission<\/a> report and most everything im saying is in the Warren Commission<\/a> report. They can look at it original fbi files, the lab files of the Lab Technicians<\/a> and scientists who worked at the fbi, did ballistics testing and all that. Theyre all part of the collection and someone could come in and look through them, themselves. But even when you said earlier thats the rifle that oswald used to kill the president , there were people who would say thats not true. Thats right and so what im saying is the opinion of the Warren Commission<\/a> and i guess i should state i have no opinion one way or another on this. But thats how its identified in our records and thats how i will identify it to you. This is gray zipper jacket. This also tied oswald to the murder of tibbett because according to the Warren Commission<\/a> this jacket was found sort of thrown in the ditch near where tibbett was killed and in the route people saw oswald or the who they thought was oswald taking after the killing of tibbett. Marina, oswalds wife, verified this jacket was oswalds jacket. So if you lead to Warren Commission<\/a> report, they will give their opinion on this, that it does tie him to the killing of tibbett. So this is probably one of the more famous bullets in existence. It is sometimes referred to as the magic bullet. I refer to it as Commission Exhibit<\/a> 399 because that was the number assigned to it by the Warren Commission<\/a>. It was found on the hospital stretcher. It is believes that this is the bullet that first hit president kennedy, exited through his neck and actually hit governor connolly who was sitting in front of the president. After going through his body, his arm, it was lodged into his thigh. And one thing to let people know is we have high quality, High Resolution<\/a> images of most of these art facts available on www. Archives. Gov through our access catalogue. When i try to give as many views of this as pae possible because people have questions about every aspect of this bullet, as you can imagine. And that container, is that a special bullet container . Its a container that weve created ourselves in order to have it in a container where you can see it but that it is a plug on the top and foam on the bottom so it can be in there without rattling around. But you could turn it it and view it from different angles. So its just a way of conserving it but trying to keep it so that if you needed to pull it out for some reason you would actually visibly see it. We had special housings made by the conservators here that archive s for our various bulle fragments and bullets associated with this case. So once limousine was back in washington, of course it was gone over very carefully and for were bullet fragments found in the limousine and thats what youre going to see here. Very small bullet fragments and theres the Commission Exhibit<\/a> number, 840. And then this is a larger fragment that was also found. A separate Commission Exhibit<\/a> number. There were cardboard boxes found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book<\/a> depository. Where the Warren Commission<\/a> believed the shots were fired and yes, those boxes are reta retained by the National Archives<\/a> and in our stacks. Boxes put into boxes. As you can see there. And heres another fragment of a bullet. What we have here are slides of testing that was done during the time of the assassination records review board. It was determined there was a fragment of something not part of the bullet and some question whether it was textile. It would have been significant because this was the bullet believed to have hit the president in the head, not the bullet that went through his neck and so testing was done. The National Archives<\/a> brought in various different agencies, fbi, armed forces, pathology you can see here. To examine it and test it and make a determination and it was determined it was not textile, that it was in fact some sort of human tissue of some type. And so the next question was can we edetermine any kind of dna from this and thats why we have these slides here sdw was determined there was no way to get any kind of dna out of this. There is a report on this available on our website and basically that was why we have these slides because we would not dispose of anything. This is kept in the same physical container of the bullet from which it was derived. Here are four carterage shells found at it scene of the tibbett murder. We have a place in the box for any kind of documentation that goes with it and of course the items themselves. We also maintain any previous housing, anything it was in before because we want to be extremely diligent in making sure had we dont lose any of the documentation related to these artifacts. These were found on oswalds custody at arrest. Found by the Dallas Police<\/a>. And again more cartridge cases but these were found that Texas School Book<\/a> depository. And are from it rifle. And finally this is a camera used to take a photograph which is referred to generally as the backyard photo because it was a photograph of oswald in the backyard by this camera. Yet another art fact among the collection. And hes holding a rifle and in his other hand he has a political pamphlet. Pretty famous photograph. This was an inspection of the zaruder film. There was an official government taking of it. Where they were provided with a payment for the value of it. And so now it is officially part of the custody of the National Archives<\/a>, the original. Now the copyright is retained and i believe that the family has given the copyrights over to the sixth floor museum in the old texas school back depository but if someone were to come here they can of course look that. If you were to choose to duplicate it you would need the copyrights. And if you were to come in to see it, you would be watching a duplicate of the original which is true for any of our films because we want to make sure films are preserved. When you come to look at films, youre looking at a reference copy of the film. We have Motion Picture<\/a> sound and video branch here within the National Archives<\/a> which is exactly what it says it is. Its the portion of our agency that takes care of all Motion Picture<\/a>s and sound recordings. They have custody of this item. You can actually see some of the images. I believe the zapruder film is available through resources as well. How often does anybody do what youre doing . Very rarely. This was done for a special effort. As a color film, its my understanding this is stored in cold storage because cold storage will help retain the preservation of the color. And in a lot of ways we treat the film itself almost as an art fact where were trying conserve it for all time and so its in cold storage and not taken out. From your perspective all this effort put into preserving things, why is that important . Thats our mission here at the National Archives<\/a>. Our job is to make sure the history of the u. S. Government is preserved for all time. And theres only a very small perspentage of records, 2 to 3 considered important enough to come to the National Archives<\/a>. So we work with conservators, work with our researchers and increasingly were trying to digs it our records so that anyone anywhere can have access to the records of the National Archives<\/a>","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800809.us.archive.org\/26\/items\/CSPAN3_20171221_004600_American_Artifacts_JFK_Assassination_Records\/CSPAN3_20171221_004600_American_Artifacts_JFK_Assassination_Records.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20171221_004600_American_Artifacts_JFK_Assassination_Records_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240630T12:35:10+00:00"}