The Secret Service Customer �" Bill Smith �" and what he reported about the film’s provenance:  Homer McMahon said he was told by Bill Smith that a patriotic citizen in Dallas had donated the camera-original film to the Secret Service out of a sense of duty, and that the individual did not want to make any money off of the film, and so had given it to the Secret Service for free. Bill Smith told McMahon he had personally couriered the undeveloped film himself to a Top Secret Kodak film lab called “Hawkeyeworks,” which McMahon knew to be in Rochester, N.Y. at Kodak Headquarters; that it had been developed there; and that the personnel at the Top Secret lab had subsequently referred Bill Smith back to his home base of Washington, D.C., to NPIC, for the making of individual frame enlargements and briefing boards, since those specific tasks could not be performed at the lab in Rochester.  McMahon was extremely sensitive about the code-name “Hawkeyeworks” during the interview, and regretted mentioning it.  [NOTE: In 1997, the CIA’s HRG asked the ARRB staff to expunge the use of the code-word from our written interview reports, and from the audiotape of the interview to be released to the public.  Thus, in 1998, a sanitized (i.e., redacted) tape was provided by the ARRB staff for public release by the JFK Records Collection at NARA, and the Archives placed the unredacted, original tape recording under lock and key, for automatic release not later than 2017, in accordance with the JFK Records Act.  The point is now moot, for the code-name “Hawkeyeworks” has since been effectively declassified, per the mention of this facility (“Eastman Kodak’s Hawkeye Film Processing Facility in Rochester, N.Y.”) in Dino Brugioni’s 2010 book, Eyes in the Sky, which was thoroughly vetted and approved for publication by the CIA. [19] Furthermore, Dino Brugioni himself repeatedly mentioned the “Hawkeye Plant,” and the capabilities of that state-of-the-art, high-tech laboratory, during his interviews with Peter Janney and me in 2009 and 2011.]   McMahon explained that the government had classified contracts with Kodak in 1963, and that both the CIA and Kodak had their best people working together on classified projects.  He was absolutely certain that the film had been developed at Rochester, and had come from Rochester, for Bill Smith had indicated this by using the unique code-word (“Hawkeyeworks”) that unmistakably referred to the “other Top Secret lab” in Rochester, to the exclusion of all other locations.  (The “Hawkeyeworks” lab and its capabilities, as defined by Dino Brugioni, will be further discussed later in this article.) 

Opinions About the Assassination of JFK Expressed by Bill Smith of the Secret Service:  According to Homer McMahon, Bill Smith came to NPIC in Washington, D.C., having already examined the home movie, expressing the opinion that only three (3) shots had been fired at the occupants of President Kennedy’s limousine on Elm Street, and that they had all been fired from the Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald.  Homer McMahon, who had been a trick-shot artist as a child, and a champion in NRA shooting competitions as a teenager, felt otherwise, and told Jeremy Gunn and me during our interview of him, on July 14th, 1997, that he believed 6 to 8 shots had hit President Kennedy, and that they had been fired from at least three directions.  But he could not change Bill Smith’s mind; for as McMahon said to me, “Oh yes, I expressed my opinion �" but you know, it, it, it was pre-conceived.  That’s the way I felt about it �" it was pre-conceived, so you don’t fight City Hall.  I wasn’t there to fight ‘em, I was there to do the work.”  In truth, Bill Smith did not want Homer McMahon or Ben Hunter to do any analysis whatsoever; he only wanted them to make internegatives and blowup prints, or enlargements, for the frames he selected during his visit to NPIC.

Photographic Products created at NPIC:  With the full understanding that they were going to be used in briefing boards created by their colleagues “upstairs” at NPIC, McMahon and Hunter created internegatives of frames selected by “Bill Smith,” using a full immersion “liquid gate” procedure in the optical precision 10x20x40 enlarger.  Each internegative created was of a “40x” magnification, and three (3) each contact prints of about 5 x 7 inches in size were then made from each 40x internegative.  Ben Hunter initially recalled a very limited number of frames selected �" perhaps as few as only eight (8).  Homer McMahon recalled that somewhere between 20 and 40 internegatives were made from the home movie of the assassination.  Bill Smith selected all of the frames for which internegatives were made, and enlargements were later printed.  Smith told McMahon that the work was to be treated as “above Top Secret;” that it was on a strictly “need-to-know” basis; and that not even Homer McMahon’s boss was to know anything about it.  McMahon and Hunter were instructed that they could not even answer questions about why they were putting in for overtime, and that any such questions from their immediate supervisors would have to be referred to Captain Sands.  McMahon reported that Bill Smith took custody of all discards, and all scraps and trash that night, and that he and Hunter were not allowed to throw anything into the burn bags, or classified trash receptacles.

(click on each image for larger version)

The Four Briefing Board Panels at NARA are examined:  Both McMahon and Hunter agreed that the prints mounted on the four briefing board panels in the National Archives were indeed the prints they made the night of their “NPIC event.”  Neither man had seen the completed briefing boards before, but they both agreed that the 28 prints mounted on the four panels were the prints they had made.  McMahon stated that the prints had been trimmed down to a slightly smaller size from what had been printed.  McMahon also noted, with dispassionate professional interest, that the prints had deteriorated badly over time, due to the instability of the dyes.  When McMahon examined the 28 prints mounted on the four panels, he immediately expressed the opinion that some of the prints they had made were missing from the briefing boards, and had not been used �" most likely additional views of the limousine before it went behind the Stemmons Freeway sign, and additional views of Clint Hill mounting the vehicle after the head explosion.  Neither McMahon nor Hunter had any direct or indirect knowledge of how the four briefing board panels were used.  McMahon could only speculate that they may have been used to brief the Warren Commission, but this was not something told to him by Bill Smith; indeed, there was no Warren Commission yet created when Bill Smith visited NPIC. [The Warren Commission was not even created by President Lyndon B. Johnson until Friday, November 29th, 1963.]

The five pages of NPIC “working notes” are examined:  Neither McMahon nor Hunter had seen four of the five pages of notes that are found in Flat 90A at the Archives, along with the four briefing board panels.  (Specifically, they said they had never seen the three-page shot and timing analysis, nor the typewritten summary of briefing board panel contents.)  The one page that they both agreed contained their handwriting was the half-sheet with writing on both sides.  Of particular interest to McMahon was the back side of the half sheet, which contains the following pencil notations: “shoot internegs, one-and-a-half hr; proc and dry internegs, two hr; print test, one hr; make three prints (each), one hr; proc and dry prints, one-and-a-half hr;” and the total is listed as “seven hrs.”  McMahon stated with assurance that these notations were in his handwriting; and that they referred to the time required to create the internegatives from the Zapruder film frames, and to make the contact prints.  [Note: In my judgment, the prints mounted on the four briefing board panels are clearly from the extant version of the Zapruder film, for they appear to match the Zapruder film frames published throughout the years in numerous books.  So clearly, McMahon and Hunter were also working with a version of the Zapruder film, just as Brugioni was during his “briefing board event,” even though the assassination film was not identified through the use of Zapruder’s name by Bill Smith.]   

ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE TWO NPIC EVENTS 

So what does all this mean?  Let us explore the obvious implications, and let us not pull any punches.

Brazen Deception by “Bill Smith” of the Secret Service:

“Bill Smith” of the Secret Service (and yes, Homer McMahon did express some degree of whimsical, bemused doubt about his true identity) [20] “lied his eyes out” to Homer McMahon about the origins of the assassination film he brought to NPIC with him from “Hawkeyeworks” in Rochester, New York.  We know definitively from the examination of the four briefing board panels by both Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, in the summer of 1997, that Bill Smith did bring with him to NPIC a version of the Zapruder film, and not “some other film.”  This is crucially important, for from this basic fact we know that “Bill Smith of the Secret Service” lied to Homer McMahon and Bill Hunter about a number of things: (1) he lied when he said a private citizen donated the assassination film out of patriotism because he did not want to make any money on it; for Abraham Zapruder was determined to make as much money as he could off of the film, and did; (2)  he lied when he said he carried the undeveloped film to Rochester and had it developed at “Hawkeyeworks;” for it is well documented that the camera-original Zapruder film was developed at the Kodak Plant in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963; (3) clearly, the film brought to NPIC from “Hawkeyeworks” by Bill Smith was created there, but it was not just “developed” �" it was a re-creation of the Zapruder film after its alteration at that facility, intended to masquerade as an original out-of-camera, unslit (16 mm wide), “double 8” film.  It had to have been produced in an aerial-imaging optical printer with an animation stand affixed, such as that shown in Figures 9.4 and 9.5 of Professor Raymond Fielding’s seminal 1965 textbook, The Technique of Special Effects Cinematography (Focal Press, Fourth Edition, 1985).  The technique undoubtedly used �" aerial imagery �" was widely employed in Hollywood during the 1950s and 1960s, and can be read about on pages 224-232. 

Those orchestrating the Zapruder film cover-up the weekend of the assassination were determined to call in a different work crew when the altered film (now “reassembled” optically in an “aerial imaging” optical printer as an unslit, 16 mm wide “double 8” film again) was returned to NPIC the night after Brugioni’s “briefing board event.”  The goal was obviously to make a “sanitized” set of briefing boards, from the “sanitized” film, which would now necessarily be absent the more egregious evidence of frontal shots, and therefore of crossfire, and conspiracy.   This need is the only reasonable explanation for calling in a different work crew and telling them that the work was “need-to-know” and “above Top Secret,” and that not even their bosses were allowed to know what activity they had been involved in.  Simply put, it was easy to fool McMahon and Hunter and whoever assembled the four panel briefing boards using their prints; the hard part, and the necessary part, was to keep the Brugioni team ignorant of the activity of the McMahon team.  This succeeded remarkably well because of the culture of secrecy within the Agency, and Brugioni never found out about the second NPIC event until 2009.  McMahon, who cannot be located today in 2012, and who is presumably deceased, never found out about it.  This does not speak well for Arthur Lundahl, or Navy Captain Pierre Sands, however, who both must have understood the Big Picture, and known what was afoot at the facility they managed.

So the operative question remains, did the “Hawkeyeworks” facility have the capability to perform aerial imaging?  Was there an optical printer with an aerial imaging animation stand installed, present at Hawkeyeworks?    

“Hawkeyeworks” Explained:

After the Homer McMahon interview was released in 1998, JFK researchers loyal to the concept of an authentic Zapruder film that is “ground truth” in the Kennedy assassination downplayed the importance of the “Hawkeyeworks” story, either doubting its existence because there was no documentary proof, or alternately saying that the “Hawkeyeworks” lab was solely dedicated to U-2 and Corona satellite photography.  But these critics were wrong on both counts.

First, Dino Brugioni, during his 2009 and 2011 interviews with Peter Janney and me, not only confirmed the existence of the state-of-the-art Kodak lab in Rochester used by the CIA for various classified purposes, but confirmed that he visited the place more than once, including once prior to the JFK assassination.  (He also confirmed its existence in his recent book, Eyes in the Sky, on page 364.)  Second, Dino Brugioni made clear to me, when I interviewed him in July of 2011, that the “Hawkeye Plant” (as he called it) was an enormous state-of-the-art private sector laboratory founded and run by Kodak, which performed far more tasks than “just” Corona satellite and U-2 “special order” film services.   He said that the Hawkeye Plant was involved in developing new film products and in manufacturing and testing special film products of all kinds, including new motion picture films, and that it definitely had the capability to process motion pictures.  He did not see such equipment himself, but was told by Ed Green, a high-ranking Kodak manager at “Hawkeyeworks” with whom he had a relationship of trust, that the “Hawkeye Plant” could, and did, definitely process motion pictures.  When repeatedly questioned about this capability by Peter Janney throughout the 2009 interviews, Brugioni said with great reverence, on several occasions, “They could do anything.” [21]

The CIA refused to provide me with any information about “Hawkeyeworks” when the Agency finally responded to my September 12, 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on February 7, 2011.  But that was hardly surprising, since over one year earlier, on January 27, 2010, the CIA wrote to me, cautioning: “The CIA Information Act, 50 U.S.C. Section 431, as amended, exempts CIA operational files from the search, review, publication, and disclosure requirements of the FOIA.”  What this meant, in rather blunt language, was that if the CIA was running an “op,” such as the alteration of the Zapruder film immediately after JFK’s assassination, then they didn’t have to search for those records or tell me about it, in any way.  So the failure by the CIA to answer any of my many questions about “Hawkeyeworks” means literally �" nothing.

The plain facts are these: (1) the 8 mm (already slit!) camera-original Zapruder film was delivered to NPIC late on Saturday evening, 11/23/63, and the two Secret Service officials who brought it to NPIC for the making of briefing boards left with the film at about 3 AM Sunday morning; and (2) a 16 mm, unslit version of the Zapruder film was returned to NPIC the next night, after dark, on Sunday evening, 11/24/63; and its courier (“Bill Smith”) said it had been processed at “Hawkeyeworks,” and that he had brought it directly to NPIC in Washington, D.C. from Rochester (using the unmistakable code word “Hawkeyeworks”) himself.   

“Double 8” home movies which have already been slit at the processing facility do not miraculously “reassemble” themselves from two 25-foot strips 8 mm in width, and connected with a splice in the middle, into 16 mm wide unslit double 8 films.  A new Zapruder film was clearly created at “Hawkeyeworks” in Rochester, in an optical printer.  Bill Smith told the truth when he said the film he carried had been developed there at “Hawkeyeworks;” he lied when he said that it was the camera-original film taken by the photographer in Dallas.

If “Hawkeyeworks” truly had the physical capability “to do anything,” as Ed Green informed Dino Brugioni, then all that would have been required that weekend would have been to bring in some experienced personnel �" an animator or two, and a visual effects director �" experienced in the “black arts” of Hollywood.  Those personnel, if not already on-site, employed at “Hawkeyeworks,” could have been brought into Rochester on Saturday, November 23rd, the same day the JFK autopsy photographs were being developed in Washington, D.C. at Naval Photographic Center, Anacostia.  The JFK autopsy photos developed on Saturday (per Robert Knudsen’s 1978 HSCA deposition transcript) would have provided the guide for the image alteration necessary on the Zapruder film the next day, on Sunday. The JFK autopsy photos document the massive head wound created by clandestine, post mortem surgery on JFK’s head wounds at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and would have provided a rough guide for the massive head wound in the top and right side of the skull that had to be painted onto selected Zapruder film frames the next day, on Sunday.  No such parietal-temporal-frontal wound was seen at Parkland Hospital in Dallas by any of the treatment staff the day Kennedy was shot and treated there, but it had to be added to selected Zapruder film frames, to match the illicit post mortem cranial surgery at Bethesda that was being misrepresented in the autopsy photos as “damage from the assassin’s bullet.” [22]   In addition to painting on a false wound, of course, the forgers at “Hawkeyeworks” would have had to obscure �" black out �" the real exit wound, in the right rear of JFK’s head, that was seen in Trauma Room One at Parkland Hospital.  (More on this below.)

What is undeniable is that there are undisputed “facts on the ground” which indicate that an optically edited Zapruder film �" a re-creation �" arrived at NPIC in Washington, D.C. on Sunday night, 11/24/63, after the film had been in Rochester, at “Hawkeyeworks,” all day long.  Remember, the two Secret Service officials who had the original 8 mm camera-original film departed NPIC with the film at about 3 AM (4 AM at the latest) on Sunday morning.  They may have been at “Hawkeyeworks” with the film as early as 6 AM; and since the Zapruder film did not reappear at NPIC until well after dark on Sunday evening, approximately 12 hours (or more) may have been available to those at “Hawkeyeworks” who were engaged in its alteration.