# Abraham Zapruder

Abraham Zapruder (May 15, 1905 – August 30, 1970) was a Ukrainian-born American clothing manufacturer who witnessed the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. He unexpectedly captured the shooting in a home movie while filming the presidential limousine and motorcade as it traveled through Dealey Plaza. The Zapruder film is regarded as the most complete footage of the assassination.

## Early life

Zapruder was born into a Jewish family in the city of Kovel, the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), the son of Israel Zapruder. He received only four years of formal education in Ukraine. In 1909, his father left for North America. In 1918, Abraham Zapruder left Kovel for Warsaw with his family. In 1920, his family emigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn, New York where they were reunited with Israel Zapruder.
Studying English at night, he found work as a clothing pattern maker in Manhattan's garment district. In 1933, he married Lillian Sapovnik (1913–1993); they went on to have two children. Zapruder was a Freemason and an Inspector-General (33rd degree) of the Scottish Rite.
In 1941, Zapruder moved to Dallas, Texas, to work for Nardis, a local sportswear company. In 1949, he co-founded Jennifer Juniors, Inc., producing the Chalet and Jennifer Juniors brands of dresses. His Jennifer Juniors offices were on the fourth floor of the Dal-Tex Building, across the street from the Texas School Book Depository.

## Witness to Kennedy assassination
### Filming of assassination

At the time of the assassination, Zapruder was an admirer of President Kennedy and considered himself a Democrat. Zapruder had originally planned to film the motorcade carrying President Kennedy through downtown Dallas on November 22, but he decided not to because it had been raining that morning. When he arrived at work that morning without his camera, Zapruder's assistant insisted that he retrieve it from home before going to Dealey Plaza because the weather had cleared.
Zapruder's movie camera was an 8 mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 PD—top-of-the-line when it was purchased in 1962. Zapruder had planned to film the motorcade from his office window but opted for a better spot in Dealey Plaza where the motorcade would be passing. He stood atop a 4-foot (1.2 m) concrete abutment extending from the John Neely Bryan concrete pergola on the grassy knoll north of Elm Street on the opposite side of the Texas School Book Depository to the north in Dealey Plaza. Zapruder's secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, offered to assist Zapruder as he had vertigo and was apprehensive about standing even at a small height of a few feet alone.
While Sitzman stood behind Zapruder and held his coat to steady him, he began shooting the presidential motorcade as it turned from Houston Street onto Elm Street in front of the Book Depository. Zapruder's film captured 26.6 seconds of the traveling motorcade carrying President Kennedy on 486 frames of Kodak Kodachrome II safety film. It famously captured the fatal head shot that struck President Kennedy as his limousine passed almost directly in front of Zapruder and Sitzman's position, 65 feet (20 m) from the center of Elm Street.
Zapruder later recalled that he immediately knew that President Kennedy's wound was fatal as he saw the president's head "...explode like a firecracker." Walking back to his office amid the confusion following the shots, Zapruder encountered The Dallas Morning News reporter Harry McCormick, who had been standing near Zapruder and had noticed he was filming the motorcade. McCormick was acquainted with Agent Forrest Sorrels of the Secret Service's Dallas office, and offered to bring Sorrels to Zapruder's office. Zapruder agreed and returned to his office. McCormick later found Sorrels outside the Sheriff's office at Main and Houston, and together they went to Zapruder's office.
Zapruder agreed to give the film to Sorrels on the condition it would be used only for investigation of the assassination. The three then took the film to the television station WFAA intending to have it be developed. After it was realized that WFAA was unable to do so, the film was taken to Eastman Kodak's Dallas processing plant later that afternoon, where it was developed around 6:30 p.m. As the Kodachrome process requires different equipment for duplication than development, the original print was taken to the Jamieson Film Company, where three additional copies were made; these were returned to Kodak around 8 p.m. for processing. Zapruder kept the original, plus one copy, and gave the other two copies to Sorrels, who sent them to Secret Service headquarters in Washington.

### Television interview

While at WFAA, Zapruder described on live television the assassination of President Kennedy:
   Jay Watson (WFAA, Dallas)
       [...] May I have your name, please, sir?

   #### Abraham Zapruder

       My name is Abraham Zapruder.

   #### Watson

       Mister, ZAP-puh-dah?

   #### Zapruder

       ZAP-pru-der, yes, sir.

   #### Watson

       ZAP-pru-dah. And would you tell us your story, please, sir?

   #### Zapruder

       I got out in, uh, about a half-hour earlier to get a good spot to shoot some pictures. And I found a spot—one of these concrete blocks they have down near that park, near the underpass. And I got on top there; there was another girl from my office; she was right behind me. And as I was shooting—as the President was coming down from Houston Street making his turn; it was about a half-way down there—I heard a shot, and he slumped to the side, like this. Then I heard another shot or two—I couldn't say [whether] it was one or two—and I saw his head practically open up [places fingers of right hand to right side of head in a narrow cone, over his right ear], all blood and everything, and I kept on shooting. That's about all. I'm just sick. I can't...

   #### Watson

       I think that pretty well expresses the entire feelings of the whole world.

   #### Zapruder

       Terrible, terrible.

   #### Watson

       You have the film in your camera; we'll try to get...

   #### Zapruder

       Yes, I brought it on the studio, now.

   #### Watson

       We'll try to get that processed and have it as soon as possible.

### Sale of rights

Late that evening, Zapruder was contacted at home by Richard Stolley, an editor at Life magazine (and first editor of the future People magazine). They arranged to meet the following morning to view the film, after which Zapruder sold the print rights to Life for $50,000. Stolley was representing Time/Life on behalf of publisher Charles Douglas Jackson.
The following day (November 24), Life purchased all rights to the film for a total of $150,000 (approximately $1,493,000 today).
The night after the assassination, Zapruder said that he had a nightmare in which he saw a booth in Times Square advertising "See the President's head explode!" He determined that, while he was willing to make money from the film, he did not want the public to see the full horror of what he had seen. Therefore, a condition of the sale to Life was that frame 313, showing the fatal shot, would be withheld from the public. Although he made a profit from selling the film, he asked that the amount he was paid not be publicly disclosed. He later donated $25,000 (about $249,000 today) of the money he was paid to the widow of Officer J. D. Tippit, a Dallas police officer who was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald 45 minutes after President Kennedy was killed.
In 1975, Time, Inc. (which owned Life magazine) sold the film back to the Zapruder family for $1. In 1978, the Zapruders allowed the film to be stored at the National Archives and Records Administration where it remains. In 1999, the Zapruders donated the copyright of the film to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

### Testimony

In his testimony to the Warren Commission, Zapruder was asked for his impression regarding the direction of the shots by assistant Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler:
   LIEBELER: Did you form any opinion about the direction from which the shots came by the sound, or were you just upset by the thing you had seen? ZAPRUDER: No, there was too much reverberation. There was an echo which gave me a sound all over. In other words that square is kind of—it had a sound all over.
Zapruder added that he had assumed the shots came from behind him because the President's head went backwards from the fatal shot, and also that the wound on the side of the President's head was facing that direction. He also said he believed it was because police officers ran to the area behind him.
He broke down and wept as he recalled the assassination, and did so again at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw.

## Death

Zapruder died of stomach cancer in Dallas on August 30, 1970, at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy, Oswald and later Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald, died; he was later buried in the Emanu-El Cemetery in Dallas.