mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-19 04:34:28 -05:00
1729 lines
88 KiB
Plaintext
1729 lines
88 KiB
Plaintext
<conspiracyFile>TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH MR. BRIAN MEE
|
|
CONCERNING THE FAMOUS BACKYARD RIFLE PHOTOGRAPHS
|
|
<div>
|
|
Introduction
|
|
<div>
|
|
On Tuesday, 16 August, 1994, I met with Mr. Brian Mee in my home
|
|
for the better part of three hours to discuss the famous backyard
|
|
rifle photos, which seem to show Oswald wearing a pistol belt
|
|
and holding a rifle in one hand and some radical newspapers
|
|
in the other hand. There are three backyard photographs
|
|
currently in evidence. They are labeled CE 133-A, B, and C.
|
|
Each shows the Oswald figure in a different pose. Although the
|
|
Dallas police said they found two negatives, one for A and one
|
|
for B, only the B negative is known to exist. An important
|
|
backyard snapshot was discovered in the late 1970s when the House
|
|
Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was conducting its
|
|
investigation. This photo, known as 133-A, DeMohrenschildt, is
|
|
much clearer than 133-A and was printed full negative.
|
|
Prior to our interview, I supplied Mr. Mee with a 22-page extract
|
|
from the file PHOTOS.ZIP, which at the time was available on
|
|
CompuServe's JFK Assassination Forum. This file contains the
|
|
HSCA testimony of two members of the Committee's photographic
|
|
panel, Calvin S. McCamy and Cecil W. Kirk, who testified in
|
|
defense of the backyard pictures. I also supplied Mr. Mee with
|
|
sections on the photos from two books that dispute their
|
|
authenticity.
|
|
Our meeting ran about 2 hours and 55 minutes, give or take a
|
|
few minutes. I recorded all but about 15 minutes of it on
|
|
audio cassettes. I had obtained two 60-minute tapes and one 30-
|
|
minute tape for the interview, never thinking that it would go
|
|
beyond two and a half hours. Three or four of those non-recorded
|
|
minutes resulted from the "Pause" button on the recorder not
|
|
being released after the audio tape had been paused while we
|
|
viewed a video segment. (At other times, however, the tape was
|
|
left running while we watched a video segment.) The remaining
|
|
unrecorded minutes occurred toward the end of our meeting, when I
|
|
ran out of cassette tape. When this happened, I took careful
|
|
notes.
|
|
I should make it clear at the outset that we did not examine
|
|
copies directly from the National Archives. Of course, we did
|
|
not study the original photos and the 133-B negative either.
|
|
Just about the first thing Mr. Mee asked me when he came through
|
|
the door was if I had access to the originals, and if I had my
|
|
own copies from the National Archives. Mr. Mee stated that in
|
|
some cases he would be unable to provide a firm judgment due to
|
|
the nature of the copies we had available to examine.
|
|
I will say, though, that in his video White uses copies of good-
|
|
quality reproductions of the backyard photos that he obtained
|
|
from the National Archives. I used the freeze-frame function on
|
|
my VCR and also made several long video segments of the photos
|
|
from Jack White's video. We viewed these on my 19-inch color TV,
|
|
which has a very high-quality picture. Additionally, I made
|
|
available to Mr. Mee an enlarged copy of 133-A from a fairly good
|
|
reproduction in Matthew Smith's book JFK: THE SECOND PLOT. Our
|
|
other source for copies of the backyard photographs was Robert
|
|
Groden's book THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT. Mr. Mee felt that in
|
|
several cases the copies I was able to show him enabled him to
|
|
reach firm conclusions. On the other hand, as mentioned above,
|
|
he also made it clear that he could not provide a firm opinion on
|
|
certain issues due to the nature of these copies and to his not
|
|
being able to view the original materials.
|
|
For the sake of convenience and organization, I placed subject
|
|
headings in the 22-page extract that I provided to Mr. Mee.
|
|
All testimony from PHOTOS.ZIP pertaining to these subjects
|
|
was included. The headings were as follows: "On Using Frame Edge
|
|
Markings and Scratches for Authentication"; "Frame Edge Markings
|
|
on 133-A (DeM) and the 133-B Negative"; "Imperial Reflex
|
|
Scratches on the Backyard Photos"; "Photogrammetry and the
|
|
Backyard Photos"; "Lines in the Chin Area?"; "The Shape of the
|
|
Chin"; "Varying Exposure Analysis and Faked Shadows"; "Digital
|
|
Image Processing"; "Nose Shadow vs. Body and Rifle Shadows";
|
|
"Duplicating the Nose Shadow?"; "Change of Expression?";
|
|
"Backyard Measurements and Stereo Pairs"; "Answering Jack White";
|
|
"General Comments"; "McCamy on the Possibility of Fakery."
|
|
Mr. Mee stated that the opinions he expressed were his own, and
|
|
that he was not speaking on behalf of any government agency.
|
|
The reader will notice that during the interview I read several
|
|
lengthy sections from Kirk and McCamy's testimony. I explained
|
|
to Mr. Mee before we went on tape that I would be reading
|
|
extensively from the extract in order to provide those who
|
|
would read this transcript with the necessary context and
|
|
background.
|
|
There is one issue about which I would like to further consult
|
|
with Mr. Mee, and that is his theory of how the backyard photos
|
|
could have been faked. In explaining his theory, he drew
|
|
diagrams and referred to them throughout his explanation. This
|
|
was the only point in our interview when I wished I had video
|
|
taped it as well as audio taped it. The reader might find it
|
|
somewhat hard to follow Mr. Mee's explanation without being able
|
|
to see the diagrams to which he was referring. I should say,
|
|
however, that I think one can still get the general idea of what
|
|
Mr. Mee was saying on this subject.
|
|
Following my interview with Mr. Mee, I spoke with other
|
|
professional photographers and photo lab technicians, as well as
|
|
with serious, experienced amateur photographers. They did not
|
|
know that the questions they were answering were related to the
|
|
Kennedy assassination. I posed my questions in relation to a
|
|
hypothetical photo of a doll in someone's yard. When it came to
|
|
the issue of water spots and the nearly straight line that
|
|
runs across Oswald's chin, I simply asked what the chances
|
|
were that the edge of a water spot would form a nearly straight
|
|
line. Some of the people with whom I consulted included the
|
|
following:
|
|
* Mr. Konrad Mandl, a professional photographer and photo
|
|
lab technician, and a certified member of the British Institute
|
|
of Professional Photography.
|
|
* Miss Davette Johnson, a professional photographer and photo
|
|
lab technician, and a computer graphics technician.
|
|
* Mr. Jerry Finzi, professional photographer
|
|
* Mr. Mark Loundy, professional photographer.
|
|
* Mr. Arthur Kramer, a professional photographer who has taught
|
|
photography at the collegiate level. In addition, Mr. Kramer
|
|
wrote a column for MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY magazine for 20 years
|
|
called "The View from Kramer."
|
|
* Mr. Steven Newbould, a photo lab technician at the Harrogate
|
|
Photographic Laboratories, Harrogate, England.
|
|
All of the professionals and serious amateurs with whom I spoke
|
|
corroborated Mr. Mee's views on the issues about which I asked
|
|
them.
|
|
For example, Mr. Mee expressed considerable skepticism about the
|
|
photographic panel's claim that the irregular line across the
|
|
chin was actually the edge of a water spot. This line, as it
|
|
appears in Jack White's video, is nearly straight, and Mr. Mee
|
|
said this was one of the reasons that he doubted the panel's
|
|
assertion. Miss Johnson told me that in all her years in
|
|
photography she had never seen the edge of a water spot form a
|
|
nearly straight line. Mr. Mandl said it would be unusual for the
|
|
edge of a water spot to form a nearly straight line. Similarly,
|
|
Mr. Kramer stated that such an occurrence would be "unlikely."
|
|
Mr. Mee disputed the photographic panel's claim that a vanishing
|
|
point analysis could explain the conflicting shadows in the
|
|
backyard photos. I did not discuss this subject with Miss
|
|
Johnson or Mr. Mandl, but I did question my other photographic
|
|
sources on the issue, and their responses were quite revealing.
|
|
I asked them if a vanishing point analysis could explain why the
|
|
facial and body shadows on my hypothetical doll did not fall in
|
|
the same direction. I asked them to assume that the facial
|
|
shadows fell straight down, but that the body shadows fell off in
|
|
approximately a ten o'clock position (which is what we see in the
|
|
backyard snapshots). Every single one of them insisted that the
|
|
described shadow variations were not possible without two
|
|
different light sources, and none of them expressed the view
|
|
that the variant shadows could be explained by a vanishing point
|
|
analysis.
|
|
Mr. Mee said that the film grain patterns in the backyard photos
|
|
could have been matched if the forger knew what he was doing and
|
|
took care to match the film speed. Mr. Mandl agreed that a
|
|
skillful forger could match film grain patterns in a composite
|
|
picture. Mr. Newbould said he believed that grain patterns could
|
|
be matched in a fake photo, but he added that he wanted more
|
|
information before commenting further on my question. Mr. Mandl
|
|
and Mr. Newbould were the only two persons that I asked to
|
|
comment on this topic.
|
|
<div>
|
|
Mr. Mee's Qualifications
|
|
<div>
|
|
Mr. Mee is a professional photographer and photo lab technician.
|
|
He has worked in photography for 18 years. He has worked as
|
|
photographer and photo lab technician for the U.S. Government for
|
|
the last ten years. Among other things, Mr. Mee has studied and
|
|
had on-the-job training in negative retouching, print
|
|
development, shadows, and negative analysis.
|
|
In addition, he has had technical courses in color print
|
|
development and color negative development at the Winona School
|
|
of Photography, which is affiliated with the Professional
|
|
Photographers of America School. He has also had courses in
|
|
automatic printing and in using computer video analyzers at the
|
|
KODAK School of Photography in Rochester, New York.
|
|
Mr. Mee asked me to make it clear that the views he expressed
|
|
were his own, and that he was not speaking on behalf of any
|
|
government agency.
|
|
<div>
|
|
Transcript of Interview
|
|
<div>
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG watch a segment on the DeMohrenschildt photo
|
|
from Jack White's video FAKE: THE FORGED PHOTO THAT FRAMED LEE
|
|
HARVEY OSWALD. The segment is about the DeMohrenschildt photo
|
|
and how its superior detail and clarity indicate that it was
|
|
taken with a different, better camera.]
|
|
MTG. All right, the thing about the DeMohrenschildt photo not
|
|
being a copy of 133-A because it has much better detail and a
|
|
larger background. Does that make sense?
|
|
MR. MEE. It wouldn't be a copy of 133-A if it had more detail
|
|
because, if anything, the reverse would be true, since you always
|
|
lose, you never gain, when you copy something. You lose detail,
|
|
definition, and contrast is built up. You start to lose your
|
|
gray tones, which hold most of your detail, and it starts to go
|
|
into shadow or [tape unclear]. So, it wouldn't be a copy.
|
|
The DeMohrenschildt photo would not be a copy of 133-A.
|
|
MTG. Could it have been printed off of the negative of 133-A,
|
|
even though it has better contrast and everything? I mean, Jack
|
|
White seems to think that because the DeMohrenschildt photo
|
|
has such better quality, that it must have been made with a
|
|
better camera. Is it logical to assume that it was taken with
|
|
a better camera?
|
|
MR. MEE. There are two possibilities that come to mind. That is
|
|
one of them--that it was done with a better camera. The other
|
|
one is that it was an earlier copy of the negative and that 133-A
|
|
is a second- or third-generation copy. To say that the
|
|
DeMohrenschildt photo was done with a better quality camera is
|
|
possible, and, it is likely, in this situation, the more probable
|
|
of the two choices.
|
|
MTG. Let me just see how we're sounding so far.
|
|
[Audio tape is stopped, rewound some, and then played back to
|
|
check sound quality. Mr. Mee and MTG then watch Jack White video
|
|
segment on how the frame edge markings and scratches could have
|
|
been produced.]
|
|
MTG. Your comments on that?
|
|
MR. MEE. One comment is on the theory that you an oval cutout
|
|
area was filled in with a figure. Cutting an oval out and then
|
|
inserting a body and then a head--I think that would be just too
|
|
difficult to accomplish without leaving tell-tale signs. You're
|
|
allowing too many areas where your tampering can be detected.
|
|
You're multiplying your suspected area by a whole bunch, as
|
|
opposed to just putting the head on and [tape unclear]. That
|
|
would be a little bit easier to do. That could be done. But
|
|
when you have to retouch such a large area, I think that would be
|
|
picked up. It would leave too many tell-tale signs. I wouldn't
|
|
really agree with that.
|
|
MTG. So, then, the first way that White suggested, of making an
|
|
exposure with just the edge markings on it, and then combining
|
|
this with the composite photo. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes, that could be done. It's feasible to do something
|
|
like that. The process of the sandwiching, though, might be a
|
|
little difficult to hide. This is not to say that it couldn't
|
|
be done, but then you'd be dealing with another negative and
|
|
probably with different characteristics.
|
|
But, the idea that a negative was shot that just had the edge
|
|
markings on it, and only the edge markings--something like that
|
|
would be difficult to achieve.
|
|
If you took the film and wound it across the IR camera without
|
|
making an exposure, and then developed that negative, you'd have
|
|
a clear type of, well, what we call an overlay, which you could
|
|
combine with a picture, instead of actually shooting any type of
|
|
picture through the IR camera. You see, otherwise, as soon as
|
|
you--even with the cap on--as soon as you open that up, you're
|
|
still going to get some type of traces of a different negative.
|
|
Now you could sandwich them together, and, again, we're talking
|
|
about making a print, and then working with that print and then
|
|
copying it. So that's a possibility. Something along those
|
|
lines. I wouldn't go so far as to say that's how they did it,
|
|
but it could have been done in this fashion.
|
|
MTG. So they, possibly, took some film, dragged it across the
|
|
film plane aperture, but did not snap a picture? Then, they
|
|
took the film out and that would have given them an overlay?
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes, that would give you an acetate overlay, a clear
|
|
film. Once you develop it, since it hasn't been struck by
|
|
light, it will come out clear. So then, you could place your
|
|
composite onto the acetate overlay and make a print and then copy
|
|
the print with a different camera. It would be possible to do
|
|
that.
|
|
MTG. So what would. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. But there's one thing: Keep in mind that if you
|
|
copied the print with the IR, you would have multiple streaks and
|
|
edge marks. And you would probably have a shadowing type of
|
|
effect, or a ghosting type of effect, where you'd get one and
|
|
then another one close by. Even if they had tried to drag the
|
|
film through the camera again exactly as they had done before, I
|
|
think you would still be able to pick up slight variations in the
|
|
marks with a microscope.
|
|
MTG. Okay.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the fact
|
|
that the photographic panel omitted the nose, earlobe, and chin
|
|
measurements in the backyard photos from its Penrose study.]
|
|
MTG. Comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Just pretty much what I said last time. You don't do
|
|
that kind of a study and then leave out relevant measurements.
|
|
I'm surprised that the chin measurement wasn't considered. The
|
|
guys on that panel knew that the chin in these pictures was a
|
|
disputed area, according to the other articles that you gave me.
|
|
MTG. Oh, yes. They knew. The chin had been disputed for a long
|
|
time before that.
|
|
MR. MEE. Uh-huh. Well, that just makes it harder to understand
|
|
how they could have left it out when they did their calculations.
|
|
MTG. Could they have done this because the chin, and the other
|
|
things, threw off the total measurements too much?
|
|
MR. MEE. Let me put it this way: I don't know why they would
|
|
have left out ANY measurements, especially the chin, of all
|
|
things.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG then view Jack White video segment on the
|
|
idea that the DeMohrenschildt photo was somehow produced without
|
|
the IR camera negative, and that the backyard photos could have
|
|
been made prior to being made with the IR camera.]
|
|
MTG. Any comments on that?
|
|
MR. MEE. It's quite possible.
|
|
MTG. So the DeMohrenschildt picture indicates that the backyard
|
|
photos could have been made before they were made with the IR
|
|
camera and that a better camera was used? I mean. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. I think I know what you're getting at. When you
|
|
start talking about high-quality cameras, you're talking about
|
|
the lens not as much as the camera, and you would use a high-
|
|
quality lens to copy things, because you want to try to reduce
|
|
the aberrations and the contrasts, and all the things that go
|
|
with an inferior-quality lens when you're copying. You're
|
|
already losing something. You don't want to lose anything else.
|
|
So you use the best type of lens that you can get. So, that's
|
|
consistent with what would be normal practice if you had a
|
|
picture that was being worked on. You would copy that picture
|
|
with a more expensive camera, to preserve as much of the quality
|
|
as possible.
|
|
And, with the edge markings, you're talking about more of an
|
|
original type of negative, or rather an original type of a print
|
|
from a full negative. That's not to say that would be
|
|
the original print, or the original negative. You could take
|
|
a print and copy it, and you would still get the edge markings,
|
|
but it would be printed full negative, as in the case of the
|
|
DeMohrenschildt photo. That would be the only difference,
|
|
whereas with the other pictures you might not be seeing the
|
|
full print.
|
|
During that time [the 1960s], they would do a certain amount of
|
|
cropping on the edges. This is done quite often with automatic
|
|
printers. You'll look at the picture and say, "Wait a second.
|
|
Why is this person's hand cut off, when I can see it on the
|
|
negative?" So that's pretty customary.
|
|
MTG. How much of the picture on the negative would one usually
|
|
expect to be cropped? I mean, like, if you were going to give a
|
|
percentage, would you say it would be cropped <data type="percent" unit="%">20%</data>? Ten
|
|
percent?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, you can't really say, because it depends on the
|
|
format. It depends on a lot of factors. It depends on the
|
|
machine you're using. It depends on the enlarger you're using,
|
|
and the operator who's using it. It gets back to format. For
|
|
example, say you've got a 35mm negative. To get a 35mm print,
|
|
full negative--for instance in a 7 X 10. . . . [pauses] But most
|
|
people don't have 7 X 10 frames; they have 8 X 10 frames. So,
|
|
what has to happen is that it has to be blown up so that the 7
|
|
goes to an 8, but then you have to cut off the edges. In that
|
|
situation, you would cut off about <data type="percent" unit="%">20%</data> of the picture. So
|
|
that's one example of how cropping can come into play. There are
|
|
a lot of variables. It's hard to say.
|
|
MTG. Okay. So now. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. I would say that normally, when you're copying a
|
|
picture, you'll want to crop in enough to where you can't see the
|
|
edging. Your attempt is to try to get in as much of the original
|
|
picture as possible, if you're trying to get the fullest picture
|
|
possible without the edging.
|
|
To get in as much as possible, you'd cut it really close. You'd
|
|
want to crop it enough so that you couldn't see whatever was on
|
|
the edges. You wouldn't want to be able to see the edging of the
|
|
picture which has a texture and has fibers in it.
|
|
MTG. Before we move on to other areas, am I right in saying
|
|
that it is your position that the presence of the frame edge
|
|
markings and the scratches alone is not absolute proof of the
|
|
backyard photos' authenticity?
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. I'm not convinced that those markings prove
|
|
that the photos weren't doctored.
|
|
MTG. Okay. The next area, then.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on Oswald's
|
|
expression in the backyard photos. White's view is that the
|
|
person in the picture could not have gone from the smile
|
|
to the frown without noticeably moving surrounding facial
|
|
muscles.]
|
|
MTG. Any comments on that?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I don't think that's a significant piece of
|
|
evidence. Every person is different. The degree that you're
|
|
smiling or frowning can be ever so subtle. The facial muscles
|
|
don't have to change that much. They [the other muscles]
|
|
wouldn't necessarily be noticed in these photographs.
|
|
Granted, if he had a big grin, it would change a lot of different
|
|
things. It would change smile lines, the way the light hits him,
|
|
what kinds of shadows would be created. Or, if he had a big
|
|
frown. The difference in expression in those two photographs
|
|
appears to be ever so slight, but it's hard to tell without
|
|
looking at enlargements of the originals. It's possible that the
|
|
frown or the smile was retouched. Both could have been
|
|
retouched.
|
|
MTG. The HSCA photographic panel said that the different
|
|
expressions--the smile and the frown--showed that this was not
|
|
the same head pasted onto separate photographs.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. Well, it's possible that the mouth was
|
|
retouched. The heads in the photos could be the same head. But,
|
|
I don't think that that argument alone is a strong argument for
|
|
saying that the same head appears in all the photos. There are
|
|
other things that are more compelling as evidence that the same
|
|
head was used. The mouth could have been retouched.
|
|
Or, there could have been more than one photograph taken of his
|
|
[Oswald's] head, and then those pictures could have been used in
|
|
the photos. You could use two heads just as easily as you could
|
|
use one. But that wouldn't change the problems with the lighting
|
|
characteristics, the shadows. If two photos of the head were
|
|
used, they were photographed in one setting, and with the head in
|
|
the same position in each picture.
|
|
MTG. Right. Oh, by the way, it's interesting that Kirk and
|
|
McCamy criticized Jack White's use of overlays, but in order to
|
|
detect the smile and the frown they themselves used overlays.
|
|
MR. MEE. Yeah. [Mr. Mee smiles noticeably as he says this.]
|
|
MTG. Okay, let's see. Where's my copy of the extract? Oh, yes.
|
|
I'd like to ask you about the two other things that were
|
|
mentioned as evidence that the same head was not used, namely the
|
|
differences in the eyes and the puffing of the lower lip in the
|
|
frown. The argument is that this is more evidence that the
|
|
heads aren't all the same.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, you could make that argument. I'm not ruling out
|
|
the possibility that two heads were used. The differences in the
|
|
eyes would indicate that more than one photo of the head was
|
|
used. But, from looking at these photographs here, it's hard for
|
|
me to tell. [Mr. Mee points to the mouth and the eyes, and then
|
|
pauses to examine the photos.]
|
|
Could we look at that segment again? What I want to see is that
|
|
part that shows the head enlarged.
|
|
MTG. Sure.
|
|
[The portion of the video segment showing the head enlargements
|
|
is replayed twice. Mr. Mee then looks at the book copies of the
|
|
photos again.]
|
|
MR. MEE. I can see a slight difference in the eyes. But, you
|
|
can't say that these things couldn't have been retouched either.
|
|
I really wish. . . .
|
|
MTG. Including the. . . . Oh, I'm sorry.
|
|
MR. MEE. No, go ahead.
|
|
MTG. Including the eyes? The eyes could have been retouched?
|
|
MR. MEE. The eyes could have been retouched. But, on the other
|
|
hand, when you're looking at a negative, and you're trying to
|
|
determine which photo goes with which negative, one of the things
|
|
you look for is the subtlety of the smile, because it can change,
|
|
ever so slightly. So, it's possible that more than one
|
|
photograph of Oswald's head was used.
|
|
It's hard to tell from the pictures I'm looking at here. If I
|
|
had the originals, I could make a better determination. After
|
|
looking at the enlargements on the video, and at all these
|
|
copies [of the photos] again, my guess would be that two pictures
|
|
of the head were used, and that the head was photographed at
|
|
around noon. But, when the one head was put on at a tilt, the
|
|
nose and eye shadows were overlooked. That [the idea that two
|
|
head pictures were used] would be the more logical assumption.
|
|
But, again, this isn't to say that the mouth and eyes couldn't
|
|
have been retouched enough to create these differences. I'd
|
|
really have to look at the originals.
|
|
MTG. Okay. McCamy also brought up the fact that the lower
|
|
lip. . . .
|
|
MTG. Okay. We got cut off there. I was going to ask you about
|
|
the puffing out of the lower lip.
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes. That really doesn't say a whole lot in terms of
|
|
whether or not there's been retouching or if more than one photo
|
|
of the head was used.
|
|
MTG. Okay. I've got another segment I'd like to show you.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the stance
|
|
of the figure in the backyard photos.]
|
|
MTG. Okay. The problem with the center of weight and also with
|
|
the stance when the figure is reversed--any comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I'm not sure exactly what Mr. White's trying to
|
|
say by pointing this out. Granted, the figure is standing there
|
|
in an awkward position, regardless of the head. The head here
|
|
doesn't seem to have any bearing on how this person is standing.
|
|
Maybe that's what he's trying to point out.
|
|
But the nature of photography is that you're catching the subject
|
|
in an instant. And to say that people stand or walk around all
|
|
the time in complete balance is not feasible. We see people off
|
|
balance in photographs all the time. He [the figure in the
|
|
backyard photos] could have been shifting his weight, or starting
|
|
to walk, or taking a step backwards. There are a lot of
|
|
different things that he could have done to make his stance look
|
|
odd. It does look odd, mind you. Certainly it does look odd.
|
|
But I don't know that you can say that the stance is not natural.
|
|
MTG. What about the claim that the figure's center of gravity
|
|
lies outside his weight-bearing foot? If this is actually the
|
|
case, what would that mean?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, to me it is a moot point. People don't always
|
|
stand perfectly balanced. You see this all the time. I don't
|
|
know exactly what the suggestion is here. If it's that the body
|
|
was retouched in some way, I'd have a problem with that. I don't
|
|
know why, if someone went to such lengths to fake these
|
|
photographs--I don't know why they would need to retouch the legs
|
|
or the upper body.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the conflicting
|
|
body shadows.]
|
|
MR. MEE. Can we watch that segment again?
|
|
[Video segment is shown several times.]
|
|
MTG. Comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, something is definitely wrong with the body
|
|
shadows. I don't see quite the difference that Mr. White does,
|
|
but I do see a difference. I don't know that I would say that
|
|
one body shadow is right at ten o'clock and that the other one is
|
|
right at twelve o'clock.
|
|
MTG. Well, I think he's phrasing the differences in terms
|
|
of approximations. In other words, he's not saying that one's in
|
|
a perfect ten o'clock position and that the other's right at a
|
|
twelve o'clock position. Let's watch the segment again.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
[Video segment is reviewed again.]
|
|
MTG. You see what I mean?
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. Okay. And, as I said, I can see that there's a
|
|
difference in the body shadows. They seem to have been made
|
|
at different times of the day.
|
|
Now, if I you wanted to make every possible allowance for body
|
|
movement or camera movement, or both, I could see how you could
|
|
perhaps say that the time difference between these pictures was a
|
|
matter of minutes, several minutes, as far as when the body
|
|
shadows were made. I could see how you could reach this
|
|
conclusion.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh.
|
|
MR. MEE. Now, the shadows cast by the head and the neck in
|
|
133-A--they look odd to me.
|
|
MTG. How so?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, the shadow of the neck looks too narrow. And the
|
|
head--I don't know if its shadow should angle off that much, when
|
|
it doesn't do that in B or C. The shadow cast by the neck is
|
|
thicker in B and C too. These could be real shadows, mind you,
|
|
but they do look a little off to me.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh.
|
|
MR. MEE. It's hard to say, though. It would really help if I
|
|
could look at the originals. Again, they could be real shadows.
|
|
I'm just saying that looking at them here, they do seem a little
|
|
strange.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the fact that
|
|
in 133-C the body shadow runs up onto the fence, whereas the
|
|
body shadows in A and B don't.]
|
|
MTG. Comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, to say that these photographs were taken within
|
|
seconds of each other, I think, is impossible. There's just too
|
|
much variance in the directions in the body shadows. They [the
|
|
body shadows] have definitely changed positions.
|
|
Now, about that C photograph--and, again, this is without looking
|
|
at the original--but what could cause that [the shadow running up
|
|
onto the fence] would be if the figure were a little farther
|
|
back. You've got to consider any lean, too. The weight shift
|
|
here [in 133-C], so that he's leaning back more, could cause
|
|
the shadow to go up onto the fence. It wouldn't take that much
|
|
of a shift or lean to make it go up onto the fence. I don't
|
|
think that's an unreasonable amount. I mean, you can see this
|
|
for yourself by standing in front of a bright light. You can see
|
|
how much you can change the length of your shadow just by leaning
|
|
a little bit.
|
|
MTG. Okay. So the body shadow on the fence, that is, the head
|
|
going up onto the fence, could be due to a slight shift or lean?
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. And, by the way, I think the suggestion that
|
|
two different people were used, wearing the same clothes, is
|
|
really unlikely. I don't think they would have used two
|
|
different bodies, especially ones that were different heights.
|
|
MTG. Right. That makes sense.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the blurriness
|
|
of the right-hand fingers in 133-A.]
|
|
MTG. Okay. On the blurriness of the fingers on his right hand.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, yeah, that's the way it appears. But that could
|
|
have been caused by a couple different things. He could have
|
|
been moving that hand. Or, light might have been reflecting off
|
|
the newspaper and into the shadow areas of the hand, which would
|
|
take away some of the detail around the fingers. If his hand
|
|
were slightly angled, just ever so slightly, and with the
|
|
reflection from the newspaper, that would make the fingers look
|
|
stubby too. Those are more likely possibilities. I don't know
|
|
why a retouch artist would have tampered with anything in that
|
|
area.
|
|
MTG. Yeah, you'd think they would have had the guy just hold the
|
|
newspapers, and so they wouldn't have to do any retouching there.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now, in this next segment. . . . Well, let's take
|
|
a look at it.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on White's finding
|
|
that when he enlarged the figure in 133-A to match Oswald's
|
|
height of 5 feet 9 inches, the length of the rifle was too long,
|
|
and that when be brought the rifles to the same size, to match
|
|
the alleged murder weapon's official size of 40.2 inches, the
|
|
figure appeared to be six inches too short.]
|
|
MTG. Okay. What are your thoughts on this?
|
|
MR. MEE. The person's height could be different, and that would
|
|
be another indication of fraud in these photos. I don't know
|
|
why they would have used a stand-in who was so much shorter than
|
|
Oswald, though. You'd think they would have gotten someone who
|
|
was about Oswald's height.
|
|
MTG. Along that line, one of the Oswald impersonators was
|
|
said by two or three witnesses to be quite a bit shorter than
|
|
Oswald.
|
|
MR. MEE. Huh. That's interesting. Well, I'd have to examine
|
|
Mr. White's methodology more closely before I reached any
|
|
conclusions here, though. When you're doing these kinds of
|
|
comparisons, you've got to figure in other factors, like
|
|
whether or not there was any tilting of the camera, how the
|
|
person was standing, the relationship to other objects in the
|
|
picture, that sort of thing. But. . . .
|
|
MTG. Does the figure look like it's leaning or tilted very much?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I was just about to say that the figure doesn't
|
|
look like he's leaning to the point that it would be that hard to
|
|
determine the height. He appears to be standing pretty much
|
|
straight up. Now, you don't know exactly how the camera was
|
|
being held, but I wouldn't guess that it was held way off
|
|
balance, to look at these pictures.
|
|
[Phone rings. Tape recorder is placed on pause. After MTG
|
|
hangs up the phone, the interview is resumed but the recorder is
|
|
accidentally left on pause. After about a minute, MTG realizes
|
|
that tape recorder is still on pause.]
|
|
MTG. Okay. We had a little snafu there. Let me ask you
|
|
this again. What is your opinion of Jack White's work overall?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, overall, I'd say it's pretty good. I don't agree
|
|
with some of it. I think he's reading too much into certain
|
|
things. But, in general, I think he's on the right track. I
|
|
mean, from everything I've seen so far, from all the copies and
|
|
everything that I've looked at so far, I would say he's made some
|
|
valid arguments.
|
|
MTG. Well, you know that British photographic expert mentioned
|
|
in the video, Jeffrey Crowley, looked at White's work and was
|
|
quite impressed with it.
|
|
MR. MEE. Uh-huh. Yeah, I remember that. I mean, the guy [Jack
|
|
White] does make some mistakes, but overall he makes a pretty
|
|
good case.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Fair enough.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view the Jack White video segment on the
|
|
conflict between the backyard figure's chin and Oswald's chin,
|
|
and on the line that goes from one side of the neck, across the
|
|
chin, to the other side of the neck.]
|
|
MTG. Okay. I think I'll bracket the issue of the shape of the
|
|
chin. I've got a lot of pictures of Oswald, going clear back
|
|
into his junior high or high school days, and they all show him
|
|
with a sharp, cleft chin. I know in his testimony, McCamy said
|
|
he found some pictures of Oswald as a youth in which his chin was
|
|
a little broader and slightly flat. Even Congressman Fithian
|
|
wasn't convinced, and I haven't found that to be the case at all
|
|
in the photos that I have of Oswald as a youth. This isn't the
|
|
issue anyway, since the backyard photos supposedly show Oswald
|
|
as an adult. And all the photos of Oswald as an adult show
|
|
him with a sharp, cleft chin. I'd like to return to the
|
|
issue of the chin later when we discuss McCamy's claim that
|
|
the edge of the chin disappears in shadow.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
MTG. I'd also like to hold off on discussing the line across
|
|
the chin until we review McCamy's argument that it was caused
|
|
by a water spot. All right?
|
|
MR. MEE. That's fine.
|
|
MTG. I just wanted to show you that segment to provide some
|
|
background for when we get to those issues in a few minutes.
|
|
MR. MEE. All right.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the conflicts
|
|
between the nose shadow and the neck and body shadows, and
|
|
on the non-movement of the nose shadow even when the head is
|
|
tilted.]
|
|
MTG. Comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I think this is the area where you get into the
|
|
most convincing evidence that these photographs have been
|
|
doctored--the lighting characteristics. You can see in these
|
|
photographs that the nose and eye shadows do not match the neck
|
|
shadow. They don't match the shadow that falls down from the
|
|
body either. They don't match. We only have one sun, and that's
|
|
the problem. Even if we had two suns, their light still could
|
|
not produce the differences in the shadows in the backyard
|
|
photos. And I think that all the things that that panel [the
|
|
photographic panel] cited to substantiate these photos aren't
|
|
nearly as important as the shadow characteristics.
|
|
MTG. I was going to ask you about that later, but as long
|
|
as we're on the subject. . . . Now, McCamy, instead of dealing
|
|
with the problems in the shadows themselves, appealed to a
|
|
vanishing point analysis. He never actually got around to
|
|
explaining why the nose and eye shadows drop straight down,
|
|
while, on the other hand, you have a big patch of light on the
|
|
left side of the neck; and why you have the body shadows in A and
|
|
C falling at about a ten o'clock position. Instead of dealing
|
|
head-on with those problems, he appealed to a vanishing point
|
|
analysis. We'll get into this more later, but for right now I'd
|
|
like to ask you if you think that an analysis of that kind can
|
|
overrule what you're able to see in the photos themselves as far
|
|
as the contrasting shadows?
|
|
MR. MEE. No, not at all. The shadows themselves, the different
|
|
angles that they show, their shape, the areas that they should
|
|
cover but don't--these have got to be dealt with directly. No
|
|
form of analysis is going to convince me that those shadows are
|
|
not different shadow groups.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Let me give you a little background on why I say this.
|
|
There are a lot of ways to alter shadows in photography. But in
|
|
this situation, where the figure was outdoors, during the day,
|
|
and where there was only one light source, there is just no way
|
|
that all the shadows in these photos could have occurred at the
|
|
same time of day.
|
|
Now, it could be argued that the reason there is more light on
|
|
the neck in 133-A is that you're getting a reflection off the
|
|
newspaper, but in B and C the newspaper is out to the side,
|
|
and. . . .
|
|
MTG. The patch of light is still there. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. It's still there. It's still consistent. And that
|
|
shouldn't be. Most of the neck on both sides should be in
|
|
shadow, to be consistent with the eye and nose shadows.
|
|
And the nose shadow should not stay in that V-shape, coming
|
|
straight down onto the upper lip, when the head is tilted. Now,
|
|
with the tilt of the head here, you wouldn't see a big difference
|
|
in the nose shadow, but you would see some difference. The shape
|
|
and the angle would change. It [the nose shadow] shouldn't look
|
|
like that with the head tilted.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on two unnatural
|
|
bulges in the backyard photos, one in the neck in 133-A and the
|
|
other in the post in 133-B, and on the fact that these bulges are
|
|
parallel to each other.]
|
|
MR. MEE. Can we see that again?
|
|
[Video segment is replayed several times.]
|
|
MTG. On the bulges. Any comments on the bulges and on the fact
|
|
that they're parallel to each other? Could it be that a
|
|
retoucher might have goofed on the neck, spotted it, and then
|
|
decided to move the goof to the post in the hope that if he
|
|
moved it to a background image it would be less noticeable?
|
|
MR. MEE. Even good retouchers sometimes make small errors. I
|
|
can see the bulges. I can see what he's [Mr. White's] talking
|
|
about here. This goes along with the theory that these are
|
|
composite photographs and that they would have required
|
|
retouching.
|
|
MTG. Now, in the photographic panel's report. . . . Well, the
|
|
panel apparently had a hard time explaining the bulge in the
|
|
post. The theory that the panel put in writing was that the
|
|
indentation was an optical illusion caused by the shadow of a
|
|
twig. . . .
|
|
MTG. Okay. Let's go over that again. I'm going to read
|
|
the explanation given by the photographic panel:
|
|
What could be perceived as an indentation in the
|
|
post in CE 133-B is believed by the undersigned to
|
|
be an illusion resulting from the location of a
|
|
shadow of a branch or a leaf along the edge of the
|
|
post.
|
|
Okay, and you said you have a problem with that.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, the problem I have with that, keeping in mind
|
|
the angle of the body shadows and others, is that a branch or a
|
|
leaf here would have been struck by sun coming from around a four
|
|
o'clock position. Therefore, a branch or leaf shadow here would
|
|
fall in about a ten or eleven o'clock position, and so I don't
|
|
think the bulge here could have resulted from a natural shadow.
|
|
With the sun coming in from a four o'clock angle, I don't see how
|
|
that bulge could have been caused by the shadow from a branch or
|
|
a leaf. The angle's not right. Can we look at the part about
|
|
this in the video again?
|
|
MTG. Sure.
|
|
[Video segment is replayed. Afterwards, Mr. Mee then examines
|
|
the book and xeroxed copies of the photos again.]
|
|
MR. MEE. No, I don't see how that bulge could have been caused
|
|
by a shadow from a branch or a leaf. I don't see it. The shadow
|
|
angle would be wrong. The sun's in the wrong position to do
|
|
that. I'd like to see the originals, though. For a small detail
|
|
like this, you want to look at the original photos. But from
|
|
what I can see here, I really don't think this bulge was caused
|
|
by any kind of a branch or a leaf shadow--not with the sun
|
|
shining the way it is in these pictures.
|
|
What about the bulge in the neck? How do they explain it? I
|
|
didn't see that discussed anywhere in the extract.
|
|
MTG. No, Kirk and McCamy didn't deal with that. There's nothing
|
|
about it in that file [PHOTOS.ZIP]. I don't know if the panel's
|
|
report deals with it either. I don't think the panel tried to
|
|
explain it. If they had offered an explanation, I think Groden
|
|
and Livingstone would have tried to answer it. I could be wrong,
|
|
though. It's kind of hard to believe they wouldn't have tried to
|
|
explain this, but I don't know. I still haven't gotten a copy of
|
|
the panel's report. So I really don't know.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay. Well, that neck bulge needs to be explained. It
|
|
doesn't look natural, and it's parallel to the bulge in the post.
|
|
It disappears in 133-B, but then you have an indentation in the
|
|
post [in B].
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh. In his HSCA testimony, Jack White suggested that
|
|
the forger's knife slipped and caused the post bulge. Could
|
|
something like that have caused the bulge in the neck?
|
|
MR. MEE. Possibly. Something's definitely off there.
|
|
MTG. Oh, I wanted to ask you about McCamy's explanation of the
|
|
indentation in the post.
|
|
MR. MEE. All right.
|
|
MTG. Let me read it here. He was referring to a computer
|
|
printout that was produced by digital image processing.
|
|
Our inspection of this leads us to believe that
|
|
the apparent indentation is simply a shadow,
|
|
because if you look very carefully, you can see
|
|
the post running through that area, and this is
|
|
just a slight darkening. So that was merely a
|
|
shadow.
|
|
MR. MEE. No, I don't think that's consistent with the direction
|
|
of the sun in the pictures. It's not consistent with the way the
|
|
bulge looks.
|
|
MTG. So, just to summarize, you're saying that the sun,
|
|
according to the body shadow, isn't in a position where it
|
|
could cause a shadow that would produce the indentation
|
|
in the post?
|
|
MR. MEE. That's how it looks to me.
|
|
MTG. Just to let you know, to my knowledge the panel never
|
|
identified which leaf or branch could have possibly caused such a
|
|
shadow. They simply said the bulge COULD have been caused by the
|
|
shadow from a leaf or a branch, but they didn't say which leaf or
|
|
branch.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
[Mr. Mee and MTG view Jack White video segment on the fact that
|
|
a patch of sunlight on the side of the house beside the post
|
|
holding the stairway does not change shape in any of the backyard
|
|
pictures, indicating that the camera making the photo did not
|
|
move horizontally. This patch of light is to the left of the
|
|
post and is roughly parallel with the figure's right elbow.]
|
|
MTG. Now, on the non-movement of that one shadow underneath
|
|
the stairway. If it doesn't change shape or position, even
|
|
though the pictures were supposedly taken with a hand-held
|
|
camera, what does that say? I'm asking this because, supposedly,
|
|
she [Marina] took the first picture. Snap. Then, Oswald came,
|
|
took the camera from her, advanced the film, handed it back to
|
|
her, and then went back to where he was. She then had to and
|
|
position the camera again. And then this process was REPEATED
|
|
for the third picture. So how could that patch of light not
|
|
change in some way?
|
|
MR. MEE. The possibility that that patch of light would stay
|
|
in the same position and maintain the same shape after all that
|
|
movement is remote. You'd need a tripod, and even then you'd
|
|
have to be careful. Can we see that again?
|
|
[Video segment is replayed several times.]
|
|
MR. MEE. I think I can see what he's talking about, but can we
|
|
look at that a couple more times?
|
|
[Video segment is replayed two more times.]
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay, let me take another look at these pictures really
|
|
quickly.
|
|
MTG. Oh, sure. Take your time.
|
|
[Mr. Mee studies pictures for approximately one minute.]
|
|
MTG. Do you see what he's talking about?
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes. I would agree with that.
|
|
MTG. So wouldn't that be almost impossible using a hand-held
|
|
camera, especially given the way that these pictures were
|
|
supposedly taken?
|
|
MR. MEE. I would say it would be nearly impossible. The chances
|
|
of something like that happening would be astronomically small.
|
|
MTG. All right. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Even if you were using a modern camera, one that would
|
|
automatically advance the film after each shot, and were taking
|
|
a series of pictures, your chances of achieving that effect
|
|
would be low. They'd be better, but still very low.
|
|
MTG. All right. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I think we have just
|
|
one more segment.
|
|
[MTG starts to play the video tape and then realizes there are no
|
|
more video segments.]
|
|
MTG. Nope. That was it. That was the last of the segments.
|
|
MR. MEE. All right.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now, a little while back, I got a message on
|
|
CompuServe from a gentleman named Paul Burke. In reference to
|
|
Jack White's secondary method for producing the frame edge
|
|
markings on the photos, he said, "Copying a photo assembled from
|
|
a group of photos as you and others have postulated using the
|
|
Imperial Reflex camera has a problem. Its focus ability, if any,
|
|
is limited, so the master montage would have to be large, a
|
|
couple of feet or so," which you said last time you didn't argue
|
|
with. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Right.
|
|
MTG. Okay, and then he continues, "and it would have all sorts
|
|
of granular discontinuities between the segments making it up,
|
|
such as sharp lines for the cuts, etc., etc."
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I'd have to know more about the scenario he
|
|
has in mind. What are we talking about here? I mean, how
|
|
were the first pictures taken? What was in them? How many
|
|
copies are we talking about?
|
|
The appearance of your final product will depend on several
|
|
factors. It's going to depend on things like the quality of your
|
|
original photos, the camera, the enlarging equipment and
|
|
materials, and the retouching. There are a lot of things
|
|
that would come into play.
|
|
As far as size goes, it probably would be a rather large
|
|
photograph in this scenario. Your composite--it would have to be
|
|
a rather big picture. With the lighting in these pictures [the
|
|
backyard photos], I would guess that they used medium-speed film.
|
|
But there are so many things you'd have to establish first before
|
|
you made a judgment. And, also, the farther down the line you go
|
|
from your original, the more quality you're going to lose.
|
|
MTG. Okay. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Another thing--these pictures ARE grainy. I'm talking
|
|
about A, B, and C. They are not that sharp. They do have a
|
|
lot of texture and grain to them. Plus, you've got that
|
|
tell-tale line running across the chin, and the other things
|
|
[i.e., the bulge in the neck in 133-A and the indentation in the
|
|
post in 133-B].
|
|
MTG. All right. This thing about the chin, the line across the
|
|
chin in 133-A. Now, in the extract, we read that McCamy was
|
|
POSITIVE that the line that runs from one side of the neck to the
|
|
other, crossing the chin--that that line was caused by a water
|
|
spot. The panel as a whole, however, did not go this far. In
|
|
the report it says that the cause of the lines has not been
|
|
definitely determined. But I wanted to ask you what you thought
|
|
of McCamy's explanation?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I was reading through that, and I had some
|
|
problems with it. The. . . .
|
|
MTG. Okay. So you said you had some problems with McCamy's
|
|
explanation, with his claim that the irregular line across
|
|
the chin was caused by a water spot. This is the line that
|
|
Jack White mentions as well.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, there are a couple things. One thing is the
|
|
sheer coincidence that this line just happens to fall in the chin
|
|
area; that this one edge of this one particular water spot is
|
|
supposed to have left deposits in such a way as to form a line
|
|
that coincidentally starts at one side of the neck, crosses the
|
|
chin, and then ends at the other side--right where Oswald's head
|
|
could have been attached to the body. I mean, this would be a
|
|
good place to join a head to a body in a composite, in the chin
|
|
area, and here we have a line in that region, and it's supposed
|
|
to be a water spot.
|
|
The other problem I have with what he says has to do with
|
|
his statements about the line as a photographic image.
|
|
MTG. Now, this is just before he starts talking about water
|
|
spots. You're talking about where he says the line isn't a
|
|
photographic image.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right.
|
|
MTG. Again, that line is the one that Jack White discusses in
|
|
the video, the one that starts off on one side of the upper neck,
|
|
crosses the chin, and then goes to the other side of the neck.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right.
|
|
MTG. Just to give us some context here, why don't I go
|
|
ahead and read exactly what he said about the line.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
MTG. Let's see. . . . Here it is. This was McCamy.
|
|
Now that fine line is actually too fine to be a
|
|
photographic image. The photographic image is
|
|
made up of silver grains, and these grains are
|
|
distributed all through here, so we have a good
|
|
idea of their size and distribution. This line is
|
|
a line that is much finer than the silver grains
|
|
themselves. It is much too continuous to be a
|
|
photographic line. A line that had been
|
|
photographed from some kind of montage would have
|
|
had the grain pattern of a discontinuous line, but
|
|
this line is quite continuous. Indeed, we can
|
|
follow this line down up to here and then back
|
|
around to here. It is a closed loop.
|
|
MR. MEE. Now, when you talk about what has been photographed--
|
|
what you see in the picture--that has no bearing on the grains in
|
|
the negative emulsion. The grains are more a characteristic of
|
|
the film itself than what has been produced from a photographic
|
|
print. So, when he ways, "This line is a line that is much finer
|
|
than the silver grains themselves. This is much too continuous
|
|
to be a photographic line"--this, to me, holds no water at all.
|
|
He's looking at the A print, not at the negative, so his argument
|
|
holds no water.
|
|
[Mr. Mee again reads from the extract] "A line that had been
|
|
photographed from some kind of montage would have had the
|
|
grain pattern of a discontinuous line." Now, again, that's
|
|
coming from a print, but what you'd need to look at would be the
|
|
negative, and he didn't examine the A negative. So his
|
|
argument is not valid. It doesn't prove anything. You see,
|
|
the grain is a characteristic of the negative, not the print.
|
|
I mean, even forgetting about that part of his argument, what
|
|
he's saying is that it [the line] doesn't have a grain pattern
|
|
running through it. The line is so fine that he says it's
|
|
getting in between the grain, which would put it in the emulsion.
|
|
It's like a sandwich, kind of like with two pieces of plastic,
|
|
and then the water spot would be sitting on top. But I think
|
|
that would be so obvious that there would be no doubt about it.
|
|
When he says the line on the chin is part of a closed loop, I'm
|
|
sort of at a disadvantage because I don't have the exhibit he was
|
|
using. So it's hard for me to comment. But if that irregular
|
|
line is part of a closed loop and was caused by a water spot,
|
|
then the loop is the outline of the water spot. Now that line is
|
|
almost straight, and water spots don't normally have edges like
|
|
that. I mean, water spots . . . well . . . they're just that--
|
|
they're spots. They're usually more oblique. They're not going
|
|
to have long straight edges.
|
|
And I'd like to see where the other edges of this loop are. I
|
|
mean, they don't seem to be in the face. Just looking at these
|
|
pictures here, I can see the line across the chin, but I don't
|
|
see any other tell-tale lines in the face. So I'd like to know
|
|
where the other edges [of the loop] are.
|
|
MTG. Okay. What I'd like to do now is ask you about McCamy's
|
|
point concerning what they saw when they examined the negative,
|
|
the 133-B negative, with a phase contrast microscope. Let me
|
|
just read that part, okay?
|
|
MR. MEE. Sure.
|
|
MTG. [Reading from the extract]
|
|
We examined the negative with a phase contrast
|
|
microscope, which would detect very, very small
|
|
changes in thickness in the negative.
|
|
He didn't come right out and say it, but I assume he was saying
|
|
that they checked the negative with that high-powered microscope
|
|
and didn't find any changes in thickness in the chin area in the
|
|
negative.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, the thickness of the negative is not necessarily
|
|
going to be relevant. What I'm saying is that the original
|
|
photograph could have been copied and then a negative could have
|
|
been made from that. So you're not going to see any difference
|
|
in density in the negative if the negative came from a retouched
|
|
photo.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh. Oh, let's go back to the water spot for just a
|
|
second if we could. I wanted to ask you something else about
|
|
what McCamy said about it.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
MTG. He said, "We did not see water spots. . . ." Now, in the
|
|
extract the word "not" is missing, but it's obvious that that's
|
|
what he was saying. As you read on, it's obvious that that's
|
|
what he was saying. [Resumes reading]
|
|
We did not see water spots on 133-B, but we do see
|
|
that this same spot occurs on both of these first-
|
|
generation prints of the A negative, so we know
|
|
that the spot must have been on the negative.
|
|
Any comments on that?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, to me, what he's saying is inconsistent. He's
|
|
saying that the water spot had to be on the A negative because
|
|
it's on the print, and that it's not part of the photographic
|
|
image. But unless you see the negative, you can't really say
|
|
that.
|
|
MTG. Now, just for the record here, let me read what the
|
|
[photographic] panel said about the irregular lines that
|
|
appeared on the scanned image of the B negative. I'm reading
|
|
from Groden and Livingstone's book HIGH TREASON.
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes.
|
|
MTG. Let me go ahead and read that out of the book.
|
|
MR. MEE. Okay.
|
|
MTG. They're quoting directly from the photographic panel's
|
|
report. Let's see. . . . Here it is. [Reads from page
|
|
201 of HIGH TREASON]
|
|
Under very carefully adjusted display conditions,
|
|
the scanned image of the Oswald backyard negative
|
|
did exhibit irregular, very fine lines in the chin
|
|
area.
|
|
The panel went on to say that the lines were probably caused
|
|
by "very faint water stains." Comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes, I meant to ask you about their reference to
|
|
"lines," not just a single line. What other lines did they find?
|
|
MTG. You know, to be honest, I don't know. I've wondered about
|
|
that myself, because McCamy only mentioned one line that was
|
|
found with digital image scanning.
|
|
MR. MEE. Huh. Well, as far as what we just read, I would
|
|
say it's evidence of tampering. I don't accept the idea that
|
|
that line across the chin was caused by a water spot, at least
|
|
not at this stage I don't. Now, again, I haven't seen the
|
|
exhibit that shows the shape of the water spot that McCamy says
|
|
caused the line, but I'd be surprised if it caused me to change
|
|
my mind. I just don't think a water spot would leave that kind
|
|
of a line.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now, McCamy said that they examined the chin area
|
|
with digital image processing and that they didn't find any
|
|
granular inconsistencies.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, if you matched the film speed, using the kind of
|
|
film that was common back then, it would be hard to prove
|
|
something either way. Back then there was pretty much one way of
|
|
making film.
|
|
If you had a forger who knew his stuff and who knew the kinds
|
|
of things that would be checked for later on, you'd have to
|
|
guess that he would have done his best to match the grain
|
|
characteristics. This wouldn't have been impossible. If
|
|
he had access to the negatives of the pictures of Oswald's
|
|
head, it could have been done.
|
|
What I'm saying is that the tampering, the pasting of the head
|
|
onto the figure's chin, could have been done well enough to where
|
|
they [the members of the photographic panel] would not have been
|
|
able to pick it up with the technology that they had at that
|
|
time.
|
|
MTG. Ah, here's the part I was looking for you. If I could,
|
|
I'd like to read this to you. This is about the grain pattern
|
|
again.
|
|
One of the things that we wanted to do was to
|
|
study the nature of the silver grain in the areas
|
|
above the chin and below the chin, because of the
|
|
allegation that there were two different
|
|
photographs in some way. And so we did
|
|
that. . . . And as photographic scientists, we
|
|
found nothing remarkable about the grain pattern.
|
|
This was the same type of grain pattern.
|
|
MR. MEE. But, again, if the forger matched up the film, there
|
|
wouldn't be any noticeable difference in the grain. It [digital
|
|
image processing] would be inconclusive. Now, I'm not saying
|
|
this would be an easy process. It would all depend on if you had
|
|
the negatives of the pictures of the head.
|
|
MTG. To match the film, you mean.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. But it could be done. With the way film was
|
|
made back then--there was pretty much one way of making film--if
|
|
you matched the film speed, assuming you had access to the
|
|
negative of each head shot you were using, you could match the
|
|
film characteristics.
|
|
MTG. So your position is that the things that they claimed to
|
|
have observed through digital image processing in and of
|
|
themselves cannot prove that these are authentic photographs?
|
|
MR. MEE. No, I don't think that digital image processing alone
|
|
can prove these photographs are authentic. With the technology
|
|
that was available back then [in the late 1970s], I don't think
|
|
they could have proven this. I don't know that it could be done
|
|
today--possibly, with the scanning technology that's just
|
|
coming out, you could do it. It would depend on how carefully
|
|
the forger matched the film and on what steps he went through to
|
|
fake the photographs. There are a lot of variables.
|
|
MTG. All right. Vanishing point analysis. I'm a layman, and
|
|
when I read this, I got the impression that they didn't want to
|
|
deal with the shadow angles themselves, so they resorted to
|
|
this vanishing point analysis. They tried to explain all the
|
|
shadow problems in the pictures--the neck, the nose and the eyes,
|
|
the body shadows--with vanishing point analysis. Let me read
|
|
this so we have some context here:
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, how did the panel
|
|
address the question of the shadows in the
|
|
backyard pictures?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. This was addressed by a vanishing
|
|
point analysis.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. What do you mean by "vanishing
|
|
point analysis"?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. The sun is very distant, so far away
|
|
that we can consider it to be at infinity, and as
|
|
a result, if we draw a line from an object to the
|
|
shadow of the object, and we do this in a number
|
|
of places in a scene, all of those lines are
|
|
parallel lines.
|
|
Now you may recall, if you have ever seen a
|
|
photograph of railroad tracks disappearing into
|
|
the distance, the photograph shows those two rails
|
|
converging at a point. That is called the
|
|
vanishing point. The rails are parallel but in
|
|
the photograph they converge. This is taught in
|
|
art courses in high school and in mechanical
|
|
drawing, so the converging of parallel lines is a
|
|
well-known matter of perspective. In a photograph
|
|
one should expect that these parallel shadow lines
|
|
should converge at the vanishing point. . . .
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes. Here we have 133-A and 133-B. A
|
|
line is drawn from a part of this stairway, past
|
|
the shadow of the stairway, down to here. A line
|
|
is drawn from the butt of the pistol, through the
|
|
shadow of the butt of the pistol, down to here,
|
|
from the arm to the shadow of the arm, down to
|
|
here. And when we do this for all the points in
|
|
the photograph, we find that they all meet at a
|
|
point, as they should.
|
|
Now this is the line that passes through the nose
|
|
and the chin down to here, and that one is the
|
|
nose to the shadow of the nose. That is the one
|
|
thing that has been disputed so frequently, and
|
|
if you do the analysis properly, you see that the
|
|
shadow lies right where it is supposed to lie.
|
|
The same thing is true over here. Here we have the
|
|
muzzle of the rifle, the shadow of the muzzle of
|
|
the rifle, and so on down the line.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, if the lines were not
|
|
parallel, would they all meet at one point as they
|
|
do in these two exhibits?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. No.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. If the lines in these two exhibits
|
|
had not met at one point, what conclusion or
|
|
inference might you have drawn?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. We might have drawn the conclusion
|
|
that something had been drawn in rather than
|
|
traced in by the hand of nature.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did you do a similar vanishing
|
|
point analysis for 133-C?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what were the results?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. The results were the same.
|
|
Now, when you read on, however, it gets a little more
|
|
interesting. McCamy was asked about the sharp angles of the
|
|
lines in his analysis. I'll find it here. It jumped out at me
|
|
as soon as I read it. [MTG looks through extract for a few
|
|
seconds] Okay. Here it is. Let me read this. He [McCamy]
|
|
was being questioned by Congressman Fithian, who was the only
|
|
guy to ask any challenging questions. He [Fithian] said,
|
|
This morning I was listening carefully when you
|
|
described the vanishing point concept, which I
|
|
find fascinating. But I wonder why did the
|
|
vanishing point lines converge in such a very,
|
|
very short distance on your chart.
|
|
Now, I look at a railroad, even an artist's
|
|
conception of a railroad track, or a road where it
|
|
sort of narrows off. It gives me the impression
|
|
that we are talking about, you know, great
|
|
distances.
|
|
Yet, there are some very, very sharp angles that
|
|
those lines from the bush and the nose and the
|
|
rest of it come in, all within 2 feet on your
|
|
chart. Could you explain that optical problem
|
|
that I am having?
|
|
And here's McCamy's answer:
|
|
Yes. The vanishing point may be at infinity; that
|
|
is, if we have parallel vertical lines and the
|
|
axis of the camera is horizontal. Then we do get
|
|
parallel lines, and of course that says that the
|
|
vanishing point is at infinity.
|
|
Now, a very slight tilt of the camera will cause a
|
|
convergence, but it would be a very slight
|
|
convergence. It starts at infinity and it begins
|
|
to move inward.
|
|
Now, on the photographs that we saw here, the
|
|
vanishing point of the shadows was substantially
|
|
below the photographs. If photographs had been
|
|
made later and later in that day, I have estimated
|
|
that these pictures were taken about 4 to 4:30 in
|
|
the afternoon--if pictures were made later, the
|
|
vanishing point would have continued to move up
|
|
until finally it would be within the picture area;
|
|
that is, as the Sun had moved behind the
|
|
photographer.
|
|
In the instance that you cite of the railroad
|
|
track disappearing into the distance, the
|
|
vanishing point is in the picture, and you
|
|
are seeing the vanishing point.
|
|
I think that is as far as I can go in describing
|
|
that phenomenon. The vanishing point can be
|
|
anywhere from at infinity to right in the picture
|
|
itself.
|
|
Now, I didn't quite understand exactly how McCamy explained the
|
|
fact that the angles in his chart were so sharp and converged
|
|
in such a short distance.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, not having looked at his chart, it's hard for
|
|
me to comment on it. I'd have to look at it and see exactly what
|
|
we're talking about. Those lines and sharp angles do sound odd,
|
|
but I'd need to see the chart itself before I could really form
|
|
an opinion here.
|
|
But, really, I understand the principle of vanishing points,
|
|
and I don't think it's relevant in this case. The real issue is
|
|
the conflicts between the shadows. And, another thing, I can
|
|
tell you that the sun that hit Oswald's face wasn't in a four
|
|
o'clock position. You've also get to deal with the absence of
|
|
shadow where there should be shadow. You've got to look at the
|
|
shadows themselves--study their angles, determine the direction
|
|
of your light source, those kinds of things.
|
|
I mean, a vanishing point analysis is not about to explain
|
|
why Oswald's nose shadow doesn't move or change form in the
|
|
photographs. It's not going to explain why you seem to have
|
|
two separate light sources hitting the body and the face. It's
|
|
not going to explain those bulges [in the neck and the post].
|
|
MTG. Okay. The disappearing chin. McCamy said that the
|
|
edge of the chin disappeared in shadow. Now, the problem he
|
|
was trying to explain is the fact that in the backyard photos
|
|
the chin is broad and flat, but in all other pictures of Oswald--
|
|
in all those that were taken from any kind of a frontal
|
|
viewpoint--his chin is sharp and cleft.
|
|
MR. MEE. It HAS disappeared in shadow, but not to the extent
|
|
that Oswald's would have, and that's the difference.
|
|
MTG. Okay. He [McCamy] was saying that Oswald's chin form
|
|
vanished to the point that in the picture it looks like he has a
|
|
broad, flat chin.
|
|
MR. MEE. No, I would disagree with that. The sun was not in
|
|
a position to have that much of an affect on the appearance of
|
|
the chin.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh. Okay. Now, Mr. Fithian, bless his heart, he had
|
|
a problem with this, too. Here's part of the exchange he had
|
|
with McCamy:
|
|
Mr. FITHIAN. Here is a thing that I had the
|
|
greatest difficulty with in terms of my own
|
|
viewing of the photographs, is the squareness of
|
|
the chin.
|
|
I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if we could ask that that
|
|
multiple photograph, that chart with half a dozen
|
|
Oswalds on it, plus the two, could be put back up.
|
|
While we are doing this, let me preface my
|
|
question by saying that sitting here and looking
|
|
at your exhibit, I did not visually at least
|
|
identify any other chin that was even
|
|
approximately as square as the one in the backyard
|
|
photograph--from all of the pictures that you put
|
|
up.
|
|
I could not see that. I hate to return to what you
|
|
have already done. But it still puzzles me and
|
|
troubles me. That seems to be one of the
|
|
strongest points of the critics, is the misshape
|
|
of the chin. I want to make sure I understood
|
|
your testimony.
|
|
It was your testimony that it was the light and
|
|
shadow combination of an overhead Sun or whatever?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes.
|
|
Mr. FITHIAN. Do I understand you correctly?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes.
|
|
Then they went on for a bit, and then Fithian continued:
|
|
Mr. FITHIAN. In the photo, in the two large
|
|
blowups, the right-hand photo, is it your
|
|
testimony, then, that the point of the chin, which
|
|
obviously doesn't disappear--and I find it
|
|
difficult to believe that just by changing your
|
|
teeth or your mouth position it really makes that
|
|
much difference--is it then that the point of the
|
|
chin disappears in the shadow of the chin in
|
|
layman's terms?
|
|
Is that what you are saying happens in that
|
|
photograph?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes, the lower part of the chin is not
|
|
illuminated, so you don't see it. It just
|
|
disappears in the shadow.
|
|
MTG. Do you accept that?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, such a thing is possible, but not in this
|
|
instance, because of the position of the sun.
|
|
MTG. And that is what?
|
|
MR. MEE. The position of the sun?
|
|
MTG. Yeah.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, the sun is overhead and to his left.
|
|
MTG. Based on the body shadows, you mean?
|
|
MR. MEE. Yeah. The sunlight is coming down at him from about
|
|
a four o'clock position. So I don't see how it could have made
|
|
that much of his chin disappear. I mean, the underside of the
|
|
chin is in shadow, but the edge hasn't vanished. The form [of
|
|
the chin] is still there.
|
|
MTG. What if the sun came from right around a twelve o'clock
|
|
position?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, then you'd have to explain why both sides of the
|
|
neck aren't in the same amount of shadow, and why the body shadow
|
|
falls off to his right.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh.
|
|
MR. MEE. I mean, if anything, it seems like there's more chin
|
|
there, more than there should be, in terms of width, even if
|
|
you ignore how flat it is.
|
|
MTG. Yeah, I think so too.
|
|
MR. MEE. That's how it looks to me. I would say the chin is a
|
|
serious problem.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh. Okay. Now, I'd like to ask you about the
|
|
fact that the panel found only very small variations in the
|
|
distances between objects in the background of the pictures.
|
|
Given the way that these photos were supposedly taken, does
|
|
that seem possible?
|
|
MR. MEE. No, the variations would be greater if these
|
|
photographs were taken the way Marina said they were. I mean,
|
|
like they showed in the video: She snaps a picture; Oswald walks
|
|
over and takes the camera from her; he advances the film; he
|
|
hands the camera back to her; he goes back over and assumes
|
|
another pose; she aims with the camera again and then takes the
|
|
picture; and they go through this process again for the third
|
|
photo. No. . . . No way. The camera would have moved more than
|
|
just a tiny fraction of an inch.
|
|
Even with a professional photographer who's trying to hold the
|
|
camera as still as possible, you're going to have more variations
|
|
in distance than what they're talking about in these pictures.
|
|
MTG. Now, Jack White mentioned that the small differences in
|
|
distance could have been produced by keystoning. What do you
|
|
think about that?
|
|
MR. MEE. Oh, I think he's right. Now, when he was demonstrating
|
|
the keystoning effect in the video, he was exaggerating a little
|
|
bit to help you understand what he was talking about, but he's
|
|
got the right idea. It would be a simple matter of tilting the
|
|
easel just a little bit. I mean, any slight movement in the
|
|
enlarger or the easel could cause the kinds of differences
|
|
they're talking about here.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Stereoscopic analysis. They said that when they
|
|
analyzed these photos, they were able to view them
|
|
stereoscopically. Let me just read some of what McCamy said:
|
|
We were able to view these photographs
|
|
stereoscopically, so we know that there was slight
|
|
camera movement. We know that there were two
|
|
pictures. But it has much more far reaching
|
|
consequence than that.
|
|
It tells us that there was a solid three
|
|
dimensional field that was photographed two times.
|
|
If one were to have photographed the background
|
|
once, and then taken a camera and photographed
|
|
that print and then rephotographed the print from
|
|
two angles, when that is viewed stereoscopically,
|
|
the human eye would tell you that you were looking
|
|
at a plane print. That isn't what we saw. We saw
|
|
depth, and we can still see depth.
|
|
Now if one were going to do art work on actual
|
|
stereo pairs, that art work has to be done
|
|
exceedingly meticulously, because the slightest
|
|
difference in the art work on one photograph and
|
|
the art work on the other photograph would cause
|
|
the points involved to appear to be too far away
|
|
or too close. They would tend to float in space.
|
|
So stereo viewing is an excellent way of checking
|
|
up on the authenticity of the photograph.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Is any special viewer necessary to
|
|
enable someone to see in stereo?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. It is not necessary but it makes it
|
|
more convenient for most people.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. How many panel members examined
|
|
these photographs in stereo?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. At least, oh, a half dozen.
|
|
MTG. Any thoughts about that?
|
|
MR. MEE. If you have slight movement during the enlarging
|
|
process or during the copying process, I think you could get a
|
|
different perspective in the photographs that would cause that
|
|
effect. So, that doesn't prove. . . . It doesn't convincingly
|
|
say that these pictures are authentic.
|
|
I mean, I think we've all at one time looked through those little
|
|
children's viewfinders and have seen those cartoon slides in
|
|
3-D. The reason you get that is that you're looking through two
|
|
different eyes and seeing the result of a slight movement of the
|
|
prints. The prints of the cartoons have been slightly moved--the
|
|
prints you're looking at through the viewfinder. You've got two
|
|
prints, and they've been moved slightly, and that's what gives
|
|
you your 3-D effect, the slight movement of those prints.
|
|
So, in the case of these photographs. . . .
|
|
MTG. The backyard photographs.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. In this case, if you had slight movement in
|
|
the enlarger or during the copying process, you could get the
|
|
right amount of difference between the photos so that you would
|
|
be able to view them in stereo.
|
|
MTG. Okay. One thing that I'd really like to ask you about
|
|
has to do with the DeMohrenschildt photograph and the frame edge
|
|
markings. Actually, it doesn't just involve the frame edge
|
|
markings. It involves matching the DeMohrenschildt photo to the
|
|
IR camera's film plane aperture. We talked about this briefly
|
|
last time. Now, when Jack White testified before the Committee,
|
|
the House Select Committee. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Uh-huh.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now, this involves the finding of the edge markings
|
|
on the edges of the DeMohrenschildt photo and the determination
|
|
that the photo is genuine because those markings are unique to
|
|
the IR camera. Now, Jack White, when he testified back then,
|
|
said. . . . Well, let me read what he said. [Reads from page
|
|
205 of HIGH TREASON]
|
|
The DeMohrenschildt picture shows a much larger
|
|
amount of background around the edges than any of
|
|
the photographs, 133-A, B, or C. To me, this
|
|
indicates that the DeMohrenschildt picture is
|
|
printed full negative. In fact, we can verify
|
|
this because it is printed with a black border
|
|
around the edge, the black border being the clear
|
|
area around the edge of the negative.
|
|
According to the FBI, the picture, CE-133-B, was
|
|
identified as being taken with Oswald's camera
|
|
because it could be matched to the film plane
|
|
aperture. Yet, if the DeMohrenschildt picture
|
|
shows a larger background area and it is taken
|
|
from the same camera viewpoint, then 133-A, B, and
|
|
C have been cropped and, therefore, if there is
|
|
more background area in the picture, then it [the
|
|
DeMohrenschildt photo] could not possibly be
|
|
matched to the film plane aperture.
|
|
Do you understand his point?
|
|
MR. MEE. Yes.
|
|
MTG. Can you explain it in layman's terms? Do you think he's
|
|
right?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, there are certain things I'd have to know
|
|
before I could say whether or not he's right. I'll put it this
|
|
way: If the DeMohrenschildt photo has a lot more background than
|
|
the B negative, and if both were taken from the same camera
|
|
viewpoint, then, yes, that would tend to tell me that Mr. White
|
|
is correct. What you'd have to do is make precise measurements
|
|
of the DeMohrenschildt picture and the B negative, and then
|
|
compare them. You'd also need to know if they were taken from
|
|
the same camera viewpoint. You'd want a good, uncropped print of
|
|
the B negative. These are the kinds of things I'd need to check
|
|
out before I could really say anything about what he [White]
|
|
says here.
|
|
MTG. In his video, Jack White suggests that the DeMohrenschildt
|
|
photo is a composite made up of 133-A and the border of the film
|
|
plane aperture of the IR camera.
|
|
MR. MEE. Can we see that segment again?
|
|
MTG. Yeah.
|
|
[Video segment is located on the tape and then replayed.]
|
|
MR. MEE. No, that explanation. . . . I see what he's saying,
|
|
but if you do that, you're going to have sort of a line of
|
|
demarcation all the way around. This would be very easy to
|
|
identify. Or, let's put it this way: It would be very difficult
|
|
to cover up, extremely difficult to cover up, a line like that.
|
|
It would be almost impossible to do that.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Now to get back to the other point, about the fact
|
|
that it's so much clearer than 133-A and. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. It's an earlier generation than the ones that have
|
|
been cropped.
|
|
MTG. Right. Now how would they have gotten the two scratch
|
|
marks onto it [the DeMohrenschildt photo]?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, this gets into how these pictures could have
|
|
been made. I'll tell you what I think they might have done.
|
|
[Mr. Mee starts to draw a diagram, using squares to represent
|
|
pictures and/or negatives. As he presents his explanation, he
|
|
points back and forth to the different squares. For instance,
|
|
when he refers to "this one" or says "here," he points to a
|
|
certain square, and then when he says something like "and then
|
|
this one over here," he points to a different square, etc.,
|
|
etc.]
|
|
You see, what I'm thinking is that there was a group of backyard
|
|
photographs made long before the DeMohrenschildt photograph, and
|
|
that at some point in this earlier group you have composites.
|
|
The first pictures, the very first ones, would be taken with a
|
|
high-quality camera, a very high-quality camera. So your first
|
|
pictures are all very high quality. Okay?
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh.
|
|
MR. MEE. And then this group here would be taken from those
|
|
pictures, again using a high-quality camera. Now the pictures
|
|
in this group would be smaller than the first ones.
|
|
And then, after that, just for example, way down the road,
|
|
133-A, B, and C were taken from these. Okay? And every time
|
|
along the way you're losing a generation.
|
|
MTG. Uh-huh.
|
|
MR. MEE. And, you never can tell, there may have been more then
|
|
a couple generations in between these photos.
|
|
Now, in the early stages, we're just talking about the
|
|
background--one very high-quality picture of the backyard.
|
|
So, then, you get down to here where you have your first pictures
|
|
that include the figure holding the rifle and the newspapers.
|
|
Okay?
|
|
MTG. All right.
|
|
MR. MEE. Now, there may have been more originals. You don't
|
|
know how many could have existed before that.
|
|
At this stage here, you introduce one or two heads, and you
|
|
retouch those prints. Then, you photograph that print and
|
|
you come up with a print and a negative here. And you do that
|
|
for each picture. Now, these prints could be retouched, or the
|
|
negatives could be retouched. Then, you'd make prints from those
|
|
negatives.
|
|
Now, you're down to here. This is where we introduce this stage,
|
|
here. These photographs can either be the same or a generation
|
|
or two down. Okay, then you've got these photos here--they've
|
|
had the art work done on them and they've been reworked. Until
|
|
now you're using a very high-quality camera. Then, you
|
|
photograph one of these photos with the IR camera to make, for
|
|
example, the DeMohrenschildt picture, which would give you the
|
|
edge markings and the scratches.
|
|
MTG. Now, what would happen if you were to analyze, say, the
|
|
negative of this photo right here with digital image processing
|
|
after all this stuff had been done?
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, you've got to remember that you have these other
|
|
pictures up here, where the heads are included. The grain
|
|
pattern of this photo--the one that you're talking about--is
|
|
going to be dependent on the film that has been used. If you
|
|
have the negative of the photo of the head, then you know what
|
|
kind of film to use.
|
|
Let's say you saw that the film used for the head was, oh, 100-
|
|
speed Kodak. That was a pretty common film back then, 100-speed.
|
|
It might have even been less than that. Now, you would have to
|
|
be sure, then, to use 100-speed Kodak to shoot the prints of the
|
|
background and of the guy standing with the rifle and the
|
|
newspapers. The key would be to keep your film consistent
|
|
throughout. That would be very important. Now, if you did this,
|
|
it would be extremely difficult, with the technology that they
|
|
had during that time, to detect what little differences you
|
|
would have with this process. We're talking about the late
|
|
seventies?
|
|
MTG. 1978 to 1979.
|
|
MR. MEE. Right. I don't think they had the technology back then
|
|
to be able to discern the small differences you'd have if you
|
|
kept your film consistent. Today, possibly, with the
|
|
sophistication of the computers and the scanning capabilities
|
|
that they're just now coming out with, you might be able to spot
|
|
the differences. But in the late seventies, I don't think they
|
|
had the capability to detect them. As long as you maintained
|
|
the consistency of the film for your photos, they'd all blend
|
|
together. It's just like anything else. If your process is
|
|
gradual enough, they're going to blend right in. This is how I
|
|
think these photographs could have been made.
|
|
MTG. Do you think there was only one forger?
|
|
MR. MEE. No, I think you would have needed a team, a group of
|
|
professionals.
|
|
MTG. I'd like to show you a couple doctored prints that were
|
|
released by Dallas authorities in 1992.
|
|
[MTG shows Mr. Mee the two prints, both of which show a white
|
|
human silhouette where Oswald is supposed to be. The whited-out
|
|
figure corresponds closely in size and outline to the figure in
|
|
the backyard photos.]
|
|
MR. MEE. Is that right? Well, somebody was doing something.
|
|
Now, this doesn't prove that this is how it was done. But these
|
|
prints might represent an early attempt to produce the backyard
|
|
photos. You never know.
|
|
See, the thing is, though, I don't believe the pictures were
|
|
made like this because you would have had too much area to
|
|
retouch, even for a good retoucher. Here, in the head area, you
|
|
would have only had a very small area to worry about. Mind you,
|
|
these prints might have been a part of the process. It could
|
|
have been done that way. But that's not how I would have done
|
|
it.
|
|
They [the forgers] probably looked at several different options
|
|
for making these photographs, and they would have been looking
|
|
for the best method. So these prints could have been one
|
|
of the ways that they considered.
|
|
MTG. All right. I'd like to ask you about varying exposure
|
|
analysis.
|
|
MR. MEE. Well, I understand what they were doing. The theory
|
|
is that you're trying to. . . .
|
|
MTG. Can I go ahead and read a little bit first?
|
|
MR. MEE. Sure.
|
|
MTG. Okay, I'm going to read some of what McCamy said about
|
|
this.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Please explain the results of this
|
|
varying exposure analysis.
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes. In these illustrations, the
|
|
greatest exposure gives the darkest print, and the
|
|
least exposure, the lightest print. The advantage
|
|
of doing this is that in the lightest areas of the
|
|
picture we can see detail here that cannot be seen
|
|
up here. Conversely, in the shadows, this is the
|
|
best photograph on which to look for the detail.
|
|
So that is a print ideally exposed to look into
|
|
the shadows. This one is ideally exposed to look
|
|
into the highlights, so we can see all the detail
|
|
there.
|
|
Mr. GOLDSMITH. After applying this method, did
|
|
the panel discern anything unusual about these
|
|
pictures?
|
|
Mr. MCCAMY. No, nothing at all. There had been
|
|
allegations that the shadows were painted in, and
|
|
a simple examination of the shadows on these
|
|
pictures shows that there is plenty of detail
|
|
there. You can see grass, little stones. There
|
|
is a newspaper lying back here. You can see the
|
|
detail on it.
|
|
Any comments?
|
|
MR. MEE. I don't think it's an issue. I mean, I don't think the
|
|
shadows were added. Now, I haven't had time to study these
|
|
pictures long enough to give a firm opinion in this area. But,
|
|
just from what I can see--again, without looking at the
|
|
originals--I don't think the shadows were added.
|
|
What he's talking about here is altering the exposure so
|
|
you can see detail in the shadows. A black and white print has
|
|
different grades from lightness to darkness. The full spectrum
|
|
is called a zone system. The full spectrum is from 1 to 10--1
|
|
being your whitest white, and 10 being your blackest black. Most
|
|
cameras and film can only pick up a zone from about. . . . Well,
|
|
let's say this is a sliding scale. Your camera might get a very
|
|
white white, but it might not get a really dark dark, and it
|
|
doesn't get everything in between. So, by altering the exposure,
|
|
you can lighten these dark areas and see detail in them.
|
|
Now that doesn't explain the problems of the different shadow
|
|
angles and the bulges in the post and the neck.
|
|
MTG. Right.
|
|
MR. MEE. And I still have some questions about the shadow
|
|
of the neck and the head in 133-A. It looks a little odd, but
|
|
that might be due to using a different head. But the shadows of
|
|
the bushes, the stairway, and all that--I don't see why a
|
|
retoucher would have bothered with them. It would have been
|
|
taking an unnecessary risk. So, really, I'd tend to agree with
|
|
him [McCamy]. From what I can see, I don't think the shadows
|
|
were added.
|
|
MTG. Okay. . . .
|
|
MR. MEE. Now, if he's saying that this analysis explains the
|
|
shadow angles and those neck and post bulges, then I would
|
|
disagree with him. You're not going to explain away those
|
|
problems with that sort of analysis.
|
|
MTG. It seems to me that the easiest way to explain the
|
|
different body shadows would be to assume that they were
|
|
photographed at different times of the day.
|
|
MR. MEE. Yeah, I think they were just taken at different times
|
|
of the day.
|
|
You see, I understand what some of these guys [conspiracists] are
|
|
saying. If you had a situation where you took a picture of the
|
|
scene, and then took a picture of a person in a studio or
|
|
somewhere else and then put the figure in the picture, then you'd
|
|
need to add the shadows. But I agree with him [McCamy] here. I
|
|
don't think the shadows were added. It would be a lot easier to
|
|
just put a head on a body. I mean, you could put anybody in the
|
|
picture. You could take the picture with the background and
|
|
the body and everything, and then just take the head and put it
|
|
on the figure. That would be a lot easier.
|
|
MTG. Okay. I know we talked about this quite a bit last time,
|
|
but I'd like to ask you again about the reenactment that McCamy
|
|
cited to show that the nose shadow could remain the same even
|
|
with the head tilted. I've already discussed this reenactment
|
|
in detail in the forum [the JFK Assassination Forum on
|
|
CompuServe]. I'd just like to get some of your views on it.
|
|
MR. MEE. [Begins shaking his head from side to side in the
|
|
typical "No" motion.] Right. Well. . . . [pauses and
|
|
continues to shake his head]
|
|
MTG. Well, you know, even Congressman Fithian pointed out that
|
|
the chances that all those things would occur at the same
|
|
time were very low. [Fithian was referring to the manipulated
|
|
and unrealistic head and camera movements that were done in the
|
|
reenactment.]
|
|
MR. MEE. Yeah. Well, let's put it this way: What they did
|
|
wasn't realistic. The bottom line is that the [nose] shadow
|
|
should have shifted when the head tilted. I mean, with the head
|
|
tilted like that, you wouldn't have a drastic change, but you'd
|
|
get enough movement that you could easily spot the difference.
|
|
There's just no way that shadow should look like that.
|
|
MTG. Okay. Let's see. . . . Let me see if I can find it
|
|
here. Okay, here it is. What I have here is a picture. . . .
|
|
[Side two of the third tape runs out. The portion follows is
|
|
reconstructed from notes taken by MTG. MTG showed Mr. Mee the
|
|
notes at the conclusion of the interview, and Mr. Mee said
|
|
they accurately reflected what he had said.]
|
|
MTG. I'd like to show you a picture from Gerald Posner's book
|
|
CASE CLOSED. The picture shows the grain structure analysis that
|
|
was done on the right side of Oswald's face. Would you take a
|
|
look at it and tell me what you think?
|
|
[MTG shows Mr. Mee the bottom photo on the sixth page of pictures
|
|
in Posner's book. Mr. Mee studies it for about a minute.]
|
|
MR. MEE. I can see some variation in the grain pattern.
|
|
However, I wouldn't form an opinion just from looking at a copy
|
|
of a picture of this nature in a book. I would need to study the
|
|
originals with a high-powered microscope so that I could see the
|
|
grain structure. But, if the forger matched the film, and given
|
|
the fact that for the most part there was one standard way
|
|
of making film in the 60s, I wouldn't expect to see a big
|
|
difference in the grain anyway. If the film was in fact
|
|
matched, it would be difficult to reach a definite conclusion
|
|
about the grain in terms of the authenticity of the backyard
|
|
photos.
|
|
MTG. When McCamy recognized that Mr. Scott's photograph was
|
|
a fake, he did so because the shadows on the suit didn't match
|
|
the shadows on the railing. McCamy explained:
|
|
He [Mr. Scott, a fellow panel member] spent 40
|
|
hours with an assistant preparing a fake
|
|
photograph of a man standing in a backyard. When
|
|
he presented the photograph, he mailed it to me, I
|
|
pulled it out of the envelope, and as I pulled it
|
|
out of the envelope I said it is a fake.
|
|
I was rather surprised that it was that easy. As
|
|
it turned out, what he had done was to make a
|
|
photograph, a 6-foot photograph of a 6-foot man,
|
|
and this was placed in the backyard, and it was
|
|
photographed.
|
|
But there was a thing that caught my eye
|
|
instantly; that is, that there were shadows that
|
|
were cast by parts of a dark suit. There were
|
|
shadows cast by parts of a railing immediately
|
|
behind the man.
|
|
When the suit was in full sunlight, it exactly
|
|
matched the railing. But the shadows on the suit
|
|
didn't match the shadows on the railing.
|
|
Now, that would not be the way it would have been
|
|
if it had been a true photograph.
|
|
When I read this, I thought it was strange that this was the same
|
|
man who had just gone to such great lengths to dismiss the
|
|
implications of the variant shadows in the backyard photos. Yet,
|
|
he admitted that he concluded that Mr. Scott's picture was a fake
|
|
because some of the shadows didn't match. What is your opinion
|
|
on this matter?
|
|
MR. MEE. McCamy was saying the same thing about Scott's photo
|
|
that others have said about the backyard pictures. He was not
|
|
consistent.
|
|
Inconsistent shadows in a photo are a clear indication of fakery.
|
|
McCamy was absolutely correct in immediately branding Mr. Scott's
|
|
picture a fake based on the conflicting shadows, because we
|
|
only have one sun. The shadow conflicts in the backyard
|
|
photographs are at least, if not more, serious and telling. The
|
|
head and the body were not photographed in the same sunlight.
|
|
They were taken at two different times of the day.
|
|
MTG. What do you think of the argument that a good forger would
|
|
have done his pasting in a different part of the body, such as
|
|
in the stomach or in the chest?
|
|
MR. MEE. For one thing, in order to attach an upper body onto
|
|
someone else's lower body in the stomach or chest area, you would
|
|
have to match the shirt widths exactly. You would need to
|
|
maintain consistency in any wrinkles or folds that came up to the
|
|
joining point. You would have to ensure that the two persons'
|
|
builds and figures were compatible. Also, the larger the object
|
|
that your attaching, the harder it will be to hide the pasting.
|
|
There is also the matter of the figure's pose. In order to
|
|
attach Oswald's upper body onto a lower body, the forgers would
|
|
have needed a picture of Oswald with his arms and hands in the
|
|
necessary positions. They would have needed photos of him
|
|
with his hands held in such a way that the rifle and the
|
|
newspapers could have been inserted into them.
|
|
Doing the pasting at the abdomen or lower would also present
|
|
problems. The builds and figures would again have to be
|
|
compatible. And you would be increasing the size of the
|
|
object to be attached, thus making it even harder to hide
|
|
the pasting.
|
|
The chin area would be a logical place to do the joining, for
|
|
a number of reasons. Most people have a natural cleft or
|
|
indentation of some form in the chin, beneath the lower lip, and
|
|
I notice that the line across Oswald's chin runs through this
|
|
area. In joining only about 4/5 of a head onto a chin, the
|
|
object to be attached would be small, much smaller than part or
|
|
all of a man's upper body.
|
|
The neck would be another place where the pasting could be done.
|
|
The object to be attached would still be relatively small, at
|
|
least when compared to an upper body. But, you would need to
|
|
have necks that were identical in size and shape.
|
|
MTG. Finally, what would you say in summary about the backyard
|
|
photographs?
|
|
MR. MEE. I am convinced they are fake. They show impossible
|
|
shadows. The shadow conflicts are serious and telling. There is
|
|
no way the backyard photos could have identical, or even nearly
|
|
identical, backgrounds if they were taken in the manner described
|
|
by Marina Oswald. The figure's chin is not Oswald's chin. This
|
|
is readily apparent. Even if we were to accept the claim that
|
|
the line across the chin was caused by a water spot, that would
|
|
not change the fact that the chin itself is noticeably different
|
|
from Oswald's chin. The neck bulge and the post indentation are
|
|
further indications of tampering.
|
|
MTG. I would like to thank you for coming here tonight and for
|
|
taking so much of your time to answer my questions.
|
|
MR. MEE. You're quite welcome, and it was my pleasure.</conspiracyFile> |