Fix the Bus

If you accept conspiracy in the assassination of JFK including a frontal shot or shots from the grassy knoll, then you must accept Abraham Zapruder’s involvement.

If you one of the conspirators going to the trouble of assiduously planning an assassination, you were going to make sure that you control the scene – the venue.

Why would you permit an individual to stand on a four foot pedestal which effectively gives him and his assistant a view behind the picket fence from where you plan to shoot?

Here is the view that Zapruder had. This is a screenshot form a video I took in the early 90s. I am standing on the pedestal where Zapruder stood. At 6’2″, I am approximately 8 inches taller than Zapruder.

So Zapruder and Sitzman have clear views of what is transpiring behind the picket fence.

If you are an assassin, why would you want them to identify you?

You wouldn’t.

Therefore, if Abraham Zapruder and his assistant are standing on that pedestal, it is because you the shooters want them on that pedestal.

Why would you want Zapruder on that pedestal?

You want him to film the assassination so that you can later match your planned narrative with what actually transpired to see if the narrative needs to be tailored.

To accomplish that end a film is necessary. And it must be a film made by an individual posing as an innocent member of the public who can take a good film and yet not take his eye off the President as he is being shot.

This would require training.

Supporting this is the remarkable steadiness of the film considering that Abraham Zapruder was an amateur photographer.

Yes it’s true that the camera goes a little off center from time to time , but for the most part it’s a great film considering Zapruder’s amateur status.

One has to wonder why everyone around Abraham Zapruder is hitting the deck, but neither he nor Marilyn Sitzman is. They are as cool as cucumbers.

Here is the aftermath on the pergola just as Zapruder and Sitzman have descended from the pedestal. Notice the Hesters on the ground.

I could understand Abraham Zapruder being in the moment when filming the assassination – so in the moment that the reality of the situation escapes him. But what about Marilyn Sitzman? She’s not looking through the viewfinder. Why does she not hit the deck? If she is holding onto Zapruder, she should surely be flinching, and yet there isn’t much evidence that she is.

After the assassination, Zapruder said that he had never seen anything (the assassination like this before. That’s not entirely true.

Where he grew up in Russia (Kovel), there was a war going on with many atrocities. As he was escaping his town in order to come to America, there is good reason to believe that he witnessed his own brother being shot by the side of the train. It seems fair to conclude that Abraham Zapruder had seen many atrocities prior to the Kennedy assassination.

Of course, Zapruder could have just been hyperbolizing. We all say things without thinking.

Now, what about the notion as put forth by Zapruder and Sitzman that they were both standing on the pedestal so as to mitigate Zapruder’s vertigo?

First, vertigo is a more precise medical condition with various causes. Did Zapruder have a medical vertigo, or was his vertigo more of a psychological type shared my many humans where our legs become a little quivery under the fear of falling and causing great harm to our bodies.

Probably the latter.

Is it true that two humans standing together on such a relatively small footprint will make a more steady unit? Why?

Sitzman being able to stabilize Zapruder might depend upon her NOT having a psychological vertigo, for if she did, might not that cause her to unsteady Zapruder? And might it not necessarily follow that two people with psychological vertigo might destabilize each other so as to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

I am also curious as to how Zapruder and Sitzman climbed aboard the pedestal. It is a clumsy climb, even more so for a man in his fifties, and, generally speaking, people with nice clothes and an appreciation for them don’t desire to mess them up.

Most women in those days wore some type of higher heel. It’s difficult for me to imagine Sitzman climbing aboard the pedestal in high heels. Or if she was wearing high heels, did she kick them off before climbing? Did she mention any of these particulars to the Warren Commission?

Unfortunately not. The Warren Commission chose not to ask her to testify. That’s odd, isn’t it. Sitzman was a material witness to the crime of the century. She enjoyed with Zapruder the best vantage point of anyone in Dealey Plaza.

As to why she was not summoned, she said it was because she was a woman and therefore unimportant in 1963. Oh, I don’t know about that. Were women unimportant when it came to a trial for murder in 1963? Was their testimony routinely disregarded in those days? Hmm, was Katya Ford unimportant? How about Anna Meller, Syvia Odio, and Mrs. Mahlon Tobias? Were they not women? They and many other women were asked to testify.

So why not Sitzman?

Maybe she wouldn’t hold up so well under questioning, eh?

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It’s important to note that Zapruder kept on filming even after JFK was hit in the head with a bullet. Now, that’s not a natural reaction that most people would have upon seeing a murder. Most people would drop the camera away and look with their own eyes to make sure that what they were seeing through the viewfinder was true. It’s a reflex reaction. And yet, Zapruder keeps filming as cool as a cucumber.

Opinion: He was trained. He was desensitized to react to sound and sight through that training.

Copyright 2023 Archer Crosley All Rights Reserved