A Reluctant Witness To History

Abraham Zapruder didn't want to go that day. His secretary, Lillian, urged him to go. They had that type of relationship. Teasing, in a friendly way. After much prodding, he decided to go. He would take his camera with him, too. The motorcade procession was scheduled to pass right across the street from his office, in Dealey Plaza, and, what the hell, to photograph a President would be something to show his Grandchildren. It wasn't everyday that President Kennedy came to Dallas.... It was around 12:15 when Zapruder took his spot. The motorcade, he knew, was scheduled to pass underneath the Texas School Book Depository and proceed by a grassy knoll towards the underpass onto the highway. So, he figured the best angle to film the President would probably be between the Depository and the underpass, right in front of the grassy knoll. There was a cement block a couple of feet off the ground he decided to stand on. With a little extra height, maybe, he would capture the President a little better.... At 58, Abraham Zapruder was a somewhat successful dress manufacturer. He had relocated from his native New York a few years earlier. He liked Dallas. They were friendly people down here. His wife and two children seemed to be adjusting to the way of life in ''Big D''. But, there was one part of life down there he felt uncomfortable about: the rabid right wing John Birch Society way of thinking. Zapruder, a proud Kennedy Democrat, heard all the abuse towards JFK. It was not just political differences, it was genuine hatred. They wanted the President's blood down here. He heard the rumors about killing Kennedy, but, he thought it was just that, sick rumors. Everybody has differences in politics, nobody would actually kill a President.... Around 12:30, Zapruder saw, from a distance, the President's car turning towards the Book Depository. By this time, there was many people lining both sides of the street to greet Kennedy. Zapruder noticed that they all seemed to be friendly and happy. It was a bright, hot, sunny day, but, you could feel the electric current running through the crowd. President and Mrs. Kennedy were sitting in the car together, along with Governor Connally and his wife. There were Secret Service agents following the car, along with the other cars in the procession. Everything seemed fine as the car turned slowly away from the Depository building. Zapruder raised his camera at that moment and started filming. For a brief moment, the car was hidden by a small billboard. While hidden, everybody heard the first shot... Various people thought it was backfire from a car. Some thought it was firecrackers. Zapruder wasn't sure, but, he heard something loud. By this time, the President's car had cleared the billboard. Kennedy's hands went to his throat. Zapruder, filming this, thought to himself that the President might be joking, like ''Oh, no, they got me!''. There was a second and third, and, possibly fourth shot. To this day, nobody is fully sure of the sequence of the shots. One hit Governor Connally. One missed. But, it was the final shot that sealed history... There were 486 frames of film that were shot, about 26.6 seconds. It was Frame 313 that history remembers. The shot that took the top of John Kennedy's head off. The shot that made Jackie get on the back of the car trying to find her husband's brain. A Secret Service agent caught her before she fell off. The car sped up and went underneath the underpass. Remarkably, Zapruder kept filming everything, while crying '' They killed him! They killed him!''... Afterwords, there was chaos in Dealey Plaza. Fear and confusion were all about. Also, people were crying. To those people who saw that last shot, there was no mistaking that the President was dead. Zapruder watched a little of what was going on around him. Some people were running towards the Book Depository, thinking the shots came from there. Most were running up the grassy knoll, where many thought the fatal shot came from, Zapruder among them. But, he was in shock. He sleepwalked back to his office and, with his secretary, burst into tears, crying for the President he loved.... As the afternoon went on, Zapruder realized he had, most likely, the footage of the assassination. He contacted a newspaper friend, who alerted the Secret Service. That evening, he talked to the SS, and developed the footage for their use. The SS took two copies for themselves and Zapruder kept one. Life magazine contacted him and, within a few days he sold the rights of the film to them for 200,000 dollars, with the stipulation to never show Frame 313. Zapruder then gave part of the money to the widow of J.D. Tippitt, who was allegedly also shot and killed by Oswald that day. The rest went to his family... For years afterwords, Abraham Zapruder suffered from nightmares and insomnia from what he had seen. He also felt guilty that he had profited from the killing by selling the film to Life magazine. According to his family, he was never the same man. He lived another 7 years before he died of stomach cancer in 1970.... The footage Abraham Zapruder shot is arguably the most famous footage ever filmed. The murder of a President. And, it has been used countless times in the debates about who really killed President Kennedy, most notably by Oliver Stone in his movie ''JFK''. He was one of the walking wounded of November 22, 1963, like many others. It wasn't suppossed to be that way. He just wanted to use his 8mm Bell and Howell to film a President for his Grandchildren.... One footnote, a few years after Abraham Zapruder's death , Life magazine sold back to the Zapruder family exclusive rights to the footage. The fee the magazine charged the family? One dollar.