Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Sergeant KIRK. Yes.
Chairman STOKES. The Chair recognizes Mr. Goldsmith.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCamy, after the panel had established that the Oswald backyard pictures had been taken with Oswald's Imperial reflex camera, what was the next step in the investigation?
Mr. McCAMY. We next addressed the issue of whether or not these were fake photographs.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Were you familiar with the allegations that have been raised in support of the argument that the backyard pictures
showing Oswald with the rifle are fake?
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Were these allegations considered by the committee's photography panel?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes, they were.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, would you define the term "photograminetry"?
Mr. MCCAMY. Photogrammetry is the science of ascertaining the positions and dimensions of objects from measurements of photographs of those objects. It is widely used in making aerial surveys. It is used in map making. It is even used by orthodontists to study the positions of teeth, and that sort of thing. So it is a fairly well established science.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. What qualifications do you have in this science?
Mr. McCAMY. Well, I am the chairman of the standards committee of the American Society of Photogrammetry.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you explain generally how photogrammetry was applied to the backyard pictures?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Measurements were made of the photographs, in particular, the shadows in the photographs were very carefully analyzed by wellknown techniques in photogrammetry, and in fact our measurements led us to the conclusion that we had stereo pairs and we were able to view the photographs stereoscopically.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. We will get into the concept of stereoscopy later.
At this time I would ask that the witness be given an opportunity to examine JFK Exhibit F-270.
Mr. McCamy, how did the panel address the allegations that there are unnatural lines which are evidence of fakery in the vicinity of Oswald's chin?
Mr. McCAMY. We very carefully examined the original negative and the first-generation prints of the negative. We compared the photograph of Oswald with other known photographs of him. To assist in our evaluation of the photographs, we had exposure series made to assure us that we would be able to see all parts of the pictures, and we used digital data processing on the photographs.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I believe you indicated that the photographs in the negative were visually inspected. What did that include?
Mr. McCAMY. Direct visual examination and examination under magnification with magnifiers and microscopes. We examined the negative with a phase contrast microscope, which would detect very, very small changes in thickness in the negative.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that the witness be given a chance to examine what has been marked for identification as JFK F-196.
And, Mr. McCamy, I would ask that you step to the easel and take a look at that exhibit.
Would you identify that exhibit for the record, Mr. McCamy?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes; we have a copy of 133-A and this is the 133-A Stovall. Here we have the 133-A DeMohrenschildt photograph. And here we have enlargements of these photographs.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, referring to these exhibits, would you explain the results of the panel's visual inspection of the chin area in these photographs?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes; there had been an allegation that on a photograph of Oswald, there was aline directly across the chin, and this has been cited as evidence that the upper part of the head had been added onto another chin. So we looked very carefully at all of the original materials to see if there were any telltale line across here. What we found was that on second and third and more generation prints, or prints that were published in books, there was a tendency to build up more and more contrast here so that this looks more and more like a line. That line is nowhere near as pronounced on the original materials.
Having examined it to that extent, it was called to our attention that it was not this gross line that was of interest to some of the critics but rather it was pointed out that there was a very fine line that begins here and curves around and comes into here. This was pointed out to us, so we began a very careful examination of that, and there is indeed a very fine line that comes from the ear comes down here, and over into here.
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.
That very fine line is in fact the edge of the water spot. When the film was processed, a drop of water remained there. When the water dried, it deposited a very fine line of minerals, and that is apparent on the picture. I have seen exactly these same water spots on the area of his shirt and on the butt of the rifle, so we know that these water spots exist all over.
Now this is Stovall and DeMohrenschildt 133-A.
You will recall we do not have the negative of that so we could not examine that negative. We did 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.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, were all of the Oswald backyard pictures, by that I mean A, B, and C, examined to see if there were any unnatural lines in the vicinity of the chin?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what was the panel's final conclusion there?
Mr. McCAMY. We found no unusual lines or edges, and these were very carefully sought.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that Mr. McCamy be given an opportunity to examine JFK F-194. Mr. Chairman, I move to admit this item.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered at this time.
[The information follows:]
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you.
Mr. McCamy, what additional information about the backyard pictures was obtained by comparing the backyard pictures with the photographs in this exhibit?
Mr. McCAMY. This photograph is quite remarkable. This was taken by the Dallas police. It shows that it isn't the picture that has a line across the chin. It is the man that has a line across the chin. He actually has an indentation right here, and that does show up in these photographs, right in the center and right here. There is a crease there, so that is a natural thing we find, but I think that it is also important to note here the exact shape of his chin. It is quite flat across here, and rounds down in this way. So that if that chin were illuminated from directly above, the light would fall down to here, to about that point, where it would seem to cut off quite straight. So this photograph gives us a good reason why that chin seems to be so flat at the bottom.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, you made reference earlier to studying these photographs by applying a technique which you referred to as varying exposures.
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you define that technique, please?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. It is often difficult on a single print to see all the detail in a photograph. Sometimes not all the detail that is in the negative is printed in the photograph. To assure that we had all of the detail available to us for study, we had the Rochester Institute of Technology make a series of prints in which the exposure was increased from one print to the next, and this allowed us to see all the detail.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that the witness now be given JFK F-192 and F-193 to examine.
Mr. McCamy, are these copies of the varying exposure prints prepared by RIT?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of these items into the record.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record.
[The information follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT F-192
JFK EXHIBIT F-193
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.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. You also referred earlier to a technique called "digital image processing."
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GoLDsMITH. Would you please define that technique?
Mr. McCAMY. Digital image processing is computer-assisted photographic evaluation. The negative or transparency or print is put into a scanner. A scanner is a device that optically looks at each very small area on the photograph and determines the lightness of it. It assigns a number to the lightness, and these numbers are then fed into a computer, into the memory. If you like afterwards, you can have that memory played back into a printing device that will reprint the photograph.
Sometimes we find it advantageous to utilize the capability of the computer while the information is in the computer to make a print that is different from the one that we put in.
For example, we can ask the computer to increase the contrast, decrease it, or increase or decrease the lightness. We can indeed ask the computer to look for edges or look for lines. We can make an analysis of the nature of the grain pattern, and then the computer can print out its results.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that Mr. McCamy be shown JFK F-197 and F-198 and that they be entered into the record.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT F-197
JFK EXHIBIT F-198
Mr. McCAMY. We had this work done by the University of Southern California and at Aerospace Corp. They use these techniques in
processing the photographs that come back from satellites, et cetera.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. You have seen these two exhibits.
Would you explain the results of the digital image processing work done on these photographs?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. 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 these were two different photographs in some way. And so we did that. This is simply a printout from the computer showing the individual grains of the film above and below the middle of the chin. And we studied this. And as photographic scientists, we found nothing remarkable about the grain pattern. This was the same type of grain pattern.
Over here we have a photograph. This is a direct printout from the computer. It just printed a straight photograph, but then we had asked the computer to look for edges, and to give us a printout of the edges. Here on the photograph you see there is an edge and that edge is shown here on this printout as a white line.
Likewise, edges here are traced out by the computer, and with this analysis, the computer was unable to see any spurious lines across the chin and not able to see any spurious lines leading into the chin from the outside.
There had been one contention that this area on this post was unnatural. 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 down through that area, and this is just a slight darkening. So that was merely a shadow, and the computer confirms this.
As you can see, it finds that straight edge running right straight down there.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, I notice that there is a line underneath, or running across Oswald's chin. Are you able to explain that line?
Mr. McCAMY. The line over here is simply the natural shape of his chin being indicated by that high level illumination. The line here, of course, is the edge of that being traced by the computer.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Which of the backyard picture materials were used or subjected to this technique of digital image processing?
Mr. McCAMY. We worked with the negative. It was the negative of 133-B.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Why weren't the prints from 133-A and 133-C subjected to this process?
Mr. McCAMY. Well, we needed the original negative, you see, to study the grain. So that is the reason we did that.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. How might evidence of fakery appear on a digital image processor printout if in fact there had been fakery?
Mr. McCAMY. Well, we should have expected to find a difference in grain, or over here, we should have expected to find edges that would have indicated some kind of montage.
Now we did not find any such evidence. That, of course, doesn't prove that it was not faked, but we are looking for evidence that it was faked, and we find none.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that Mr. McCamy be given a chance to see JFK F-386. I would also request that Mr.
McCamy be shown JFK F-270. And while that is being brought out, I move for the admission of F-386, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, may we have F-386 entered into the record?
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, drawing your attention to JFK F-270, which is the exhibit on the far left, the allegation has been made that Oswald's chin is different in the backyard photograph from the chin on the real Oswald on the left of that photograph JFK F-270.
Referring now to JFK F-386, which is the exhibit at your immediate right, how did the panel address this particular issue?
Mr. McCAMY. The panel compared the backyard photographs with these other known photographs of Oswald. We find that in some of his younger pictures, his chin appears more rounded than it does later on when he develops a slight cleft in his chin. In all of these though, we can see this rather distinctive line across the chin, and then we looked for the contour here. That would explain why the overhead illumination here would have simply cut off at this point. It seemed to us quite natural that that image would result from high level illumination of that chin.
I should remark that a number of people have made measurements of photographs and thought that there was something unusual about them. Often times people do not take into account the fact that when the jaw is clenched, you have one dimension from
the top of the head to the bottom of the chin, and when it is not clenched, you have a different length.
So I will demonstrate. It is not uncommon for people to have their mouth closed but the teeth down, so that can enter into looking at pictures like this.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Did the panel find that Oswald's chin was the same in each of these pictures? By the "same" I mean did it appear to be, did it have the same apperance in each picture?
Mr. McCAMY. The backyard photographs seem to have nothing that is unusual as compared to the other chins.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. To what extent is lighting a factor in the way that a chin might appear in a photograph?
Mr. McCAMY. It is a very important factor. Every portrait photographer knows very well that the way the face is lighted can have a tremendous effect on the appearance.
The eyes, for example, hardly show up on the backyard photographs because of this overhead illumination. Of course, the nose shadow is produced by that, but the chin form is not delineated well on that picture at all because there is little or no light coming from the front.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. From examining these photographs did the panel conclude that, in some of the pictures, Oswald's chin appears to be pointed, and in others, it is flat or straight across at the bottom?
Mr. McCAMY. Only to the extent that in his younger years it was more rounded and didn't seem to show this cleft as much as it does later on.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy. how did the panel address the question of the shawdows 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 wellknown matter of perspective. In a photograph one should expect that these parallel shadow lines should converge at the vanishing point.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that Mr. McCamy be shown JFK F-387 and F-388.
Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of these exhibits.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, they may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT F-387
JFK EXHIBIT F-388
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, I ask you if you would explain how the vanishing point principle is illustrated in these two exhibits?
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.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. At this time I would ask that Mr. McCamy be shown JFK F-179.
Mr. McCamy, it has been specifically alleged that in the backyard pictures, the shadow cast by Oswald's nose does not change even though the position of his head changes. How did the panel approach this analysis?
I understand the vanishing point analysis is part of that. How was the issue overall approached?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. The vanishing point analysis clearly proves that the shadows are correct, but we wanted to face the issue of whether or not we could convince someone else that these things can happen. So we asked the people at the Rochester Institute of Technology to make photographs that would illustrate just how it can happen that the head can be tilted and the shadow tilt with it.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that Mr. McCamy be shown JFK F-271.
Are these the photographs prepared by the Rochester Institute of Technology?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. They are enlargements of those photographs?
Mr. McCAMY. They are enlargements.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. Chairman, I move for admission into the record of this exhibit.
CHAIRMAN STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
PHOTOGRAPH PREPARED BY ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY F-271
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Would you explain what purpose this exhibit was designed to achieve and also the results of your analysis?
Mr. McCAMY. It was designed to illustrate the way the shadow of the nose moves as the head is moved and as the camera angle is changed and so on.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. And what were the results of your analysis, sir?
Mr. McCAMY. Here we see the head vertical with the overhead lighting casting a shadow of the nose directly toward the center of the lips.
Here the head has been tilted by simply placing the pencil under this model. Once it is tilted, the sun casts the shadow slightly to the right.
Now if that head is then rotated ever so slightly to the left, the shadow now appears to be pointing right straight at the lips but the subject is no longer looking at the camera. An ever so slight shift of the camera now brings the image back to looking about, as it did at first.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. So you are saying then that the fact that the position of the head has moved will not necessarily mean that the shadow cast by part of the head, in this case the nose, will move?
Mr. MCCAMY. Yes. The point is that the illumination, the exact geometry of the head and the camera position, must all be considered in trying to determine where the shadow ought to be.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, in studying the shadows in these photographs, were you able to determine the time sequence in which the three pictures were taken?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. How was that analysis done, sir, and what were your results?
Mr. McCAMY. Do we have 133-C?
Mr. GOLDSMITH. 133-C, please. I believe that is JFK-180.
Mr. McCAMY. Why not put it over on this side, please?
Mr. GOLDSMITH. How did you go about determining the time sequence in which these photographs were taken?
Mr. McCAMY. On this post, we see three shadows cast. These are also seen in the background behind the subject. Those three shadows appear on 133-A, 133-B, and 133-C, probably cast by some parallel lines, such as cables or some such thing.
If we look carefully, we see that there is a knot in the wood here. It is near the bottom shadow. Here we see that this bottom shadow is moved down considerably, so the knot is about half way between those two shadows.
Over here, the two shadows are moved down even farther, the knot is higher up, so we were able to find that the shadows were lower, down here. Then they moved up a little bit, and then they moved up a little bit more.
This indicated, you see, that the sun was moving down in this direction. And if these cables were at a considerable distance, this gives us quite an angle of throw. The indication is that this picture was taken first, then this one, and then this one.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. For the record, the witness has indicated that 133-C was taken first, then 133-B, and then 133-A, although it is possible, is it not, that there were intervening pictures?
Mr. McCAMY. Oh, there could well have been, but I considered only these.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. In examining these pictures, is there any indication that the photographer's work improved as each picture was taken?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. We can see some learning here.
On this picture, the camera was tilted to one side, and when the photographer took the picture, a common error was committed, the camera was held in one hand and the other hand was used to depress the shutter release. When that was done, the camera was rotated ever so slightly. We find the area in the neighborhood of this bush to be quite clearly recorded, so that this was the center of rotation, and over here, we see a systematic movement, a camera motion of the stair treads in the upward direction.
Now in this photograph, the camera is held upright, but his feet have been cut off. We go over to this photograph, and the camera is now held upright. He is completely included. He is now smiling and ready to have his picture taken.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, another allegation that has been made is that the heads in these photographs are identical, thereby, suggesting that one head has been used for three different composites.
How did the panel approach this issue?
Mr. McCAMY. The panel simply looked at these three pictures and found it quite puzzling that anyone would say that they are the same. He has a different look on his face on each of these pictures. Here he is rather smiling. More of his eyes were shown in this picture than in the others.
In this one, he is frowning. The lower part of his lip is puffed out.
And in this picture, he has a rather gentle smile on his face.
They are so different that it is just apparent from the photographs.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Drawing your attention now to the argument that the backgrounds in each of these pictures are identical, how was this issue studied by the panel?
Mr. McCAMY. It was studied by visual inspection and measurement. Visually inspecting the photographs, we find that there are--I have already spoken of the shadows on the post. These are different, and they do what one would expect them to do. But back in here, one sees shadow detail that is different on these because these are shadows of leaves of a tree at some distance, and the slightest movement of those leaves, of course, causes a different shadow pattern back in here.
Inspecting the photographs, we can look at a little rectangle here, for example, and we see that it looks different on these pictures. It has different dimensions, so that immediately suggests measurement.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. What other measurements, if any, did you make of these backyard photographs?
Mr. McCAMY. The two things that we wanted to determine was whether there had been any movement of the camera to the left or right and whether there had been any movement of the camera up
or down that would indicate that the camera had moved slightly between these exposures.
There is a post in the foreground. There are pickets in the background. A sensitive method of detecting a horizontal movement is to measure from the left edge of the post to the edge of the picket on the left side, the right edge of the post to the edge of the picket on the right side, and take the ratio of those two. Do that on that photograph, then do it on this photograph. We did that.
We find that that ratio is different on these two photographs, indicating that there has been a small change in the camera position from one photograph to the next.
We apply exactly the same kind of principle in the vertical direction. Measurements were made from a part of the fence in the foreground to a part of a door in the background, and in each case, this was ratioed against another dimension here. So that mere scale wouldn't change these things. And again we find that there has been some vertical movement also, very small, but it is there.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. What is the significance of the fact that there was some movement, albeit small?
Mr. McCAMY. It had two kinds of significance to us. The first thing was that it showed that the camera had been moved and therefore was not on a tripod. It had the significance to us that the background was real, that is, it was not a photograph that had simply been rephotographed and rephotographed. But it also gave us stereo. We were able to view the pictures stereoscopically.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I would ask that Mr. McCamy be shown F-203. Mr. Chairman, I move for the admission of this exhibit.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered into the record at this point.
[The information follows:]
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, would you describe the concept of stereo, using this exhibit?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. The human eyes are located a short distance apart. If we view a square peg a little way from the eye, the right eye can see the front of the peg and a little of its right side. The left eye sees the front and the little bit of the left side. This is known as the binocular disparity, that is, we see different things with the two eyes.
Another thing that we note is that for the left eye view, this spot falls behind the peg, and for the right eye view, a different spot in the background will fall behind the peg. This is known as parallax. And now the photographer can record what the human eye sees, and it is done by simply placing a camera here and a camera here.
Now the two may be combined together in what is called a stereo camera, or one can make a photograph here and then move over to here and make another photograph, and then if these two photographs can be viewed with the two eyes, you will see the same kind of depth as would be seen if you were in the original scene.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. In other words, the stereo viewing enables someone to see in three dimensions.
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. How do stereo pairs assist someone in detecting possible fakery?
Mr. McCAMY. 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 farreaching 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.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Mr. McCamy, and Sergeant Kirk, I would like to ask you both, what was the panel's conclusion regarding the backyard pictures showing Lee Harvey Oswald with the rifle and the revolver and the militant newspapers?'
Mr. McCAMY. We found no evidence whatsoever of any kind of faking in these photographs.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Sergeant Kirk?
Sergeant KIRK. I might add that we also established the camera that the photographs were taken with.
Mr. GOLDSMITH. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Chairman STOKES. At this point the procedure will be that the Chair will ask some questions of the witnesses, after which the Chair will recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer.
We will then go to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian, for such time as he may consume.
May we have exhibits 133-A, B, and C posted again, please? Thank you.
Sergeant Kirk and Mr. McCamy, aside from the technical analyses that were applied to these materials, which indicate of course that there is no evidence of fakery in these photographs, are there any practical considerations that suggest these pictures were not faked?
Sergeant KIRK. Well, sir, it was established by the Warren Commission and the FBI that both the papers and the rifle probably did not arrive in Dallas until around March 27 or 28. Mr. Oswald autographed one of the photographs on April 5. He was dismissed from the company he worked with, where he had darkroom operations open to him the following day.
We established that the film was probably developed by an amateur, and the DeMohrenschildt print was probably at least processed and washed and dried by an amateur. It is the panel's belief that the so-called drugstore prints were made much later. So even if we don't regard the testimony of Marina Oswald, where she says she probably took the photographs on March 31, the narrowing of the time in which fakery could have been done has been narrowed considerably. We are talking about the pictures, even if they were taken on March 28 or 29, processed and autographed by April 5, certainly narrows the parameters of time when these photographs could have been faked or altered.
Chairman STOKES. That, then, brings me to another concern I have, and that is whether the panel's analyses of these photos was limited solely to the allegations that have been made by the Warren Commission critics, or did you take into consideration other analyses?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. The analysis went, I think, quite a ways beyond what the critics had brought up. For example, our photogrammetric measurements over the whole photograph in all of these instances demonstrated the parallax that existed vertically and horizontally. The shadow analysis was extended far beyond anything that people had talked about earlier.
For example, on the bush to the right. That bush appears to most people to have a lot more leaves than it really has, because when you view that in stereo, you see that you are seeing a few leaves and a lot of shadows, and you can tell which is which. It was for that reason that I was able to trace the vanishing point from leaves to the shadows of leaves. We were able to detect that. None of this had been mentioned by the critics.
Chairman STOKES. Also, Mr. McCamy, I didn't get a comment from you regarding any practical considerations.
Did you care to make any comments in that area?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. It seems to me that there are other practical considerations. If someone else is trying to fake this photograph of Oswald, the backyard had to be available. It had to be available for a period of time long enough for us to be able to detect the passage of time in the pictures. They had to have the rifle and pistol. They had to have these newspapers. So there are quite a number of limitations. The shadows, of course, had to be under very, very tight control, if there was any fakery, and this sort of almost means making the sun stand still.
Chairman STOKES. There has been some testimony here with reference to what is called "transparency overlays."
Do photo scientists consider this a good way of detecting differences between soft-edged images?
Mr. McCAMY. This was a question that came up earlier, and, yes, the panel has considered overlays. All of us have used overlays for various purposes. If you have two images, say, a negative and a positive, or two positives, and they have very sharp edges, if you make two different colored transparencies of those and overlay them, one can see very readily that there is a difference between the two. That is a method of change detection. But if the edges of those photographs are rather soft, then there can be considerable differences between the two images, and you don't see the difference.
So, no, we would not use that technique on soft edge images.
Chairman STOKES. Then how much weight should we give to the argument that Oswald's head appears to be identical in length in each of the photographs? Yet in each case his body seems to vary in size.
Mr. McCAMY. Well, in the first place, the heads are not actually identical in length. If you make measurements, you find that there are small differences. There are large differences in the length of the body.
To explain that, one must use the entire theory of perspective, and you would have to know the tilt of his body relative to the camera axis. Without considering the tilt of his body to the camera axis, it is pointless to make measurements on the photographs.
Chairman STOKES. Sergeant Kirk, let me ask you this: You have had extensive experience in taking mug shots.
Can you discuss with us, in terms of taking mug shots, what your experience has been, in terms of the head remaining constant size while the body appears to vary in size?
Sergeant KIRK. Yes, sir. As you know, probably you know, I know Judge Preyer is aware of this, years ago police departments used to photograph prisoners with high scales in the background and so forth, and as the years came over, we find that as the prisoners refused to stand erect and slouched and so forth, it would give the illusion from photograph to photograph, even though you are photographing the same individual, that he or she would shrink or grow 3 or 4 inches in either direction. But since it is not too easy to slouch the head, the head would still appear to be
basically the same size in the photograph, but yet you would have disparity in appearances in height by the way the person stands.
Chairman STOKES. Is it possible I wonder for you to display that to us or exhibit that to us on any of the exhibits here?
Sergeant KIRK. We don't have an exhibit prepared for you at this time, but I would be most happy to present one to you for the record at a later date.
Chairman STOKES. OK; that will be fine.
Mr. McCamy, I just have one further question.
There has been some evidence here relating to placing rulers on photographs for certain purposes.
Can photographic objects be measured simply by putting a ruler on them?
Mr. McCAMY. I think about the best illustration that bears on this is to suppose that we have a picture of a couple sitting on a bench in the park and the moon is in the background. If one were simply to use a ruler and compare the size of the moon to the size of the young lady's head, you can see how far off it could be. The point being that the distance of objects in a photograph must be taken into account. If you are talking about a linear object of some kind, you have to take into account the tilt of that object to the camera axis. Otherwise the measurements aren't very meaningful.
Chairman STOKES. Thank you, gentlemen. My time has expired.
The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer.
Mr. PREYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been quite an education for those of us who never got much beyond the Brownie camera stage.
I wanted to ask just a couple of questions about the shadows, to make sure I understand your position, and then ask you one general question.
There have been a number of allegations about shadows in these pictures, of course, for example, that the shadows cast by the nose are inconsistent with those cast by the body.
Let me ask you this, Mr. McCamy, or either of you gentlemen.
If a picture is authentic, would you expect all of the shadows cast by objects in the photographs to line up parallel to each other?
Mr. McCAMY. They might. They might be parallel. This would happen in the event that you are looking at a small scene, and the sun were directly overhead, and the camera axis was exactly horizontal. In that case, you would find parallel lines, and we would say that the vanishing point is at infinity. But in most practical cases, as in these photographs, the lines in space are parallel. But when they are photographed on the photograph, they converge toward the vanishing point.
Mr. PREYER. Could we have exhibits F-192 and F-193 again?
These were the exhibits developed I think by the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Sergeant KIRK. Yes.
Mr. PREYER. Referring to those exhibits, I understood you to say that you were able to detect detail in the shadows of those pictures; is that correct?
Mr. McCAMY. That is correct, yes; grass, little rocks, and newspapers, and so on, in the shadows of Oswald.
Mr. PREYER. And what did this suggest to you about the authenticity of the shadows?
Mr. McCAMY. They look completely authentic, yes.
Mr. PREYER. They were not painted in?
Mr. MCCAMY. Not painted in. We found no evidence of that at all.
Mr. PREYER. I would like to ask each of you, Mr. Kirk and Mr. McCamy, for your comments on one general question, and, that is, as professionals in this field, what have you learned from this investigation?
Sergeant KIRK. Well, sir, Confucius was once accused of saying a picture is worth a thousand words, and that is obviously not true because he didn't have photography during his day. He is alleged to have said that one scene is worth a thousand tellings.
It appears that a lot of the people who criticized or found fault with these photographs were relying on a lot of tellings, a lot of second and third generation prints. This panel only looked at the original prints, and we all came to one seeing and one telling, in effect. We are saying that we found no indications that these photographs have been faked in any way.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. McCamy, do you have any general comments concerning professionalism and how these investigations should be conducted?
Mr. McCAMY. Well, yes, yes, I do, Mr. Preyer. The allegations have been based on observations made by people least qualified to make the observations. This has resulted in false observations, and, therefore, false premises on which to base theories. The lesson I think is very clearly taught, and I might say taught at extreme expense, and it is the age old lesson that a little learning is a dangerous thing.
I think that all who watch these proceedings or read this record will benefit from the observation that Mr. Blakey had the wisdom, when questions arose, to refer those questions to people who knew the answers or knew how to find the answers.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Preyer.
I have two questions as we await Mr. Fithian's arrival and the continuation of the questioning by Mr. Fithian.
First of all, gentlemen, it seems to me that if someone were making a fake photograph to frame Mr. Oswald, that he wouldn't make three fakes, because by making three fakes, he would take three chances of being detected.
I wonder, did your panel consider that at all?
Mr. McCAMY. We mentioned that, yes. It would be ridiculous for someone who was trying to do the fakes to have given us this much opportunity.
You said three pictures would give you three times as much advantage. In fact, having only two pictures gives you something more like 50 or 100 times as much advantage, because you have the stereo viewing there, you see.
Mr. FAUNTROY. You said you examined only the original pictures; is that so?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. This work was done on original materials.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Were you at any time able to examine the touched-up version which appeared on the front cover of Life magazine?
Mr. McCAMY. No, we did not.
Mr. FAUNTROY. So that you could not tell us what effect touching up may have had on the visual perception by the American people of the photo.
Mr. MCCAMY. No, sir.
Sergeant KIRK. Reverend, I would like to say one thing is that obviously when the photograph was printed, they wanted to draw attention to the weapon and to the face. That is where everybody's eyes wanted to go to. And from casual cursory examination of the photograph, it appears that a great deal of emphasis was placed on retouching the silhouette of the rifle and of his face.
Mr. FAUNTROY. That is a casual look at the Life magazine--
Mr. McCAMY. Cover.
Mr. FAUNTROY [continuing]. Cover.
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I thank the gentlemen.
Mr. Fithian has now arrived, and the Chair will yield such time as he may require to ask questions of the witness.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would say to the panel, first of all, that most of us are not specialists and, therefore, our eyes play tricks on us and we see things that we think we see, or people tell us that we see in these photos.
To that extent, Mr. White's testimony was very impressive the other day. I hope that you will tolerate my lack of expertise in this area.
I am sure you must think some of the questions I am going to ask you are dumb, but those of us who do not have your background, and only have our eyes and Congressmen must, I think, look at this from a layman's point of view.
First of all, when you look at the twigs and the variety of things that seemed to match up in Mr. White's analysis the other day to the human eye, when you lay one picture over the other, or when you look to see exactly where the twigs are, and when you tie that to the nose shadow, one can construct a pretty good layman's argument for the idea that you are working with that single background, with, you know, a head put on somebody else's body three times.
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?
Mr. McCAMY. 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.
Mr. FITHIAN. All right. Now I want to turn to what perhaps has been among the more sensational parts of the criticism of the Warren Commission with regard to the pictures, and that is the rifle, and particularly the length of the rifle, and the relationship of the stock or the butt of the rifle to the sights, to the barrel. I would like to have exhibit F-206 put up, please.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask that this be admitted into the record at this point.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Mr. FITHIAN. I believe we have another exhibit with half a dozen rifle pictures on it, if you would put that up. I have forgotten the number.
Perhaps Mr. McCamy or Sergeant Kirk or either or both, if you feel the need to go over there to deal with this, fine. If not, we will continue with you at the table.
Sergeant KIRK. I prepared a demonstration to explain how this phenomenon took place--if we could have it called up.
If I could, I would like to walk over to the easel. The National Archives is here with the weapon itself, and I would like to show the committee how it conducted its demonstration.
Mr. FITHIAN. You are speaking first for the two of you?
Sergeant KIRK. I think so.
Mr. FITHIAN. Basically, I guess I would ask that you describe for the panel whether the rifle that Oswald is seen holding in the backyard pictures is the same one that is in the Archives, that the Warren Commission concluded was the weapon used to shoot John F. Kennedy.
Sergeant KIRK. Yes, sir. You have received testimony from a gentleman--could I have that exhibit back up before, the other photograph like this with the lines going through the rifle. You just took it down, I think.
You received testimony from some people, and this was more than one critic's philosophy--they took various photographs that were taken of the weapon throughout the discovery from the depository to the Dallas police headquarters, until when it reached
the FBI headquarters, and the Warren Commission, and the National Archives.
They attempted to line up all these photographs and find a common line. Then they came to the conclusion that since it doesn't match at certain points, that the stock appeared to be long or short, it was not the same rifle.
Last month we had this rifle delivered to metropolitan police headquarters. With the assistance of Mr. Gary Philips of my shop, we attempted to demonstrate this for the committee, knowing that we had the same rifle.
Not even trying to simulate the fact of someone who is breathing, and adrenaline is pumping and moving this rifle around hard, we suspended the rifle and plumbed it with the axis of the camera, the lens of the camera is at the same height from the floor as the weapon is, top photograph, and the distance from the stock to the tip of the barrel is the same distance. That is zero base.
Then we simply swung the barrel 3 inches further away from the lens, and you can see a disparity here. Then we brought the barrel back to zero base and swung the butt just 3 inches away from the camera, and it appears that the stock has been cut off.
Then we brought the weapon back to zero base and pushed the barrel 5 inches away from camera, just 5 inches, something like this, and back to zero base, and swung the stock 5 inches away from the camera.
Even though we know we have the same weapon, it appears to be of greater length, and there are certain points that do not match up.
The logo, as you can see here, the departmental logo, was stationary, and the lines pass through the letters precisely the same place every time, but they do not pass through various parts of the rifle at the same time because we simply changed the orientation of the rifle in relation to the camera no more than 5 or 3 inches, that much.
Certainly when this weapon was carried, it was carried in all kinds of conditions, and it is unrealistic for this kind of comparison to be conducted because no consideration was considered for tilt or loss of perspective.
Mr. McCamy, I think, might have something to address this issue as well.
Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. McCamy, would you like to add to that? Would you hold on to the rifle for a minute, Sergeant, because I had another question to ask.
Mr. McCamy, do you want to add something to that?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. Do we have an exhibit on tilt?
Mr. GOLDSMITH. I believe that is F-389, Mr. Chairman. I move for the admission of this exhibit.
Mr. FITHIAN. I would ask the exhibit be entered into the record at this point, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it may be entered.
[The information follows:]
Mr. McCAMY. Suppose that we have a rifle for which the midpoint is known, and suppose we have a camera. The two elements shown are the lens and the film.
Point A on one end of the rifle is imaged by the lens at A-prime. Point B at the center is imaged at B-prime. Point C at the other end is imaged at C-prime.
These two lengths on the rifle are equal. They are 14 inches each. So, from A to B is equal to B to C. However, when they are imaged over here, A-prime to B-prime is only 1 1/2 inches, while B-prime to C-prime is 4 inches.
Mr. FITHIAN. Is what?
Mr. McCAMY. Four inches.
Mr. FITHIAN. Four inches.
Mr. McCAMY. So, you can see that because the rifle is tilted away from the camera, the size of the image changes over here. This is a very well known phenomenon in photogrammetry.
The tilt of the camera must always be taken into account when we use aerial photographs to make maps. Otherwise, the maps would not be accurate.
Knowing that this was the case, and that there had been allegations of this kind, I went back and obtained the photographs that had been taken as the rifle was taken from the book depository, photographs taken by newspaper reporters in the police station, photographs taken by the Dallas police, by the FBI, I myself photographed the rifle. It was photographed by the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
I obtained all of these photographs and went through the proper photogrammetic analysis of those photographs, finding the distance and the angle such that the rifle would image on to the film.
I worked with 10 different parts of the rifle, located along these areas, and computed the distances. When all of those distances on all of those photographs, 12 photographs, 10 different distances, when all of these were compared with the lengths on this rifle, the average error was 1 millimeter.
Mr. FITHIAN. So it is your conclusion, then, that there is just no way that you could do measurements unless you have the rifle exactly in the same relationship to the camera?
Mr. McCAMY. You cannot do measurements without taking the tilt into account.
Mr. FITHIAN. All right. Thank you.
Now, Sergeant, the FBI concluded that and they told the Warren Commission that the mark on the forestock of the rifle that you are holding was not sufficient to identify positively this rifle. Do you agree with the FBI?
Sergeant KIRK. No, sir.
Mr. FITHiAN. Why don't you?
Sergeant KIRK. Well, sir, we refer to this as a random pattern.
Mr. FITHiAN. As a what?
Sergeant KIRK. As a random pattern. You can expect this weapon, just as you can expect all those TV cameras, to receive certain amounts of damage when it is handled. If you were to examine those cameras, even though they are the same, you would not find dents and chips out of the surface in precisely the same area.
Just as the chances of a tire running over the same pieces of glass to cut the tread would be exactly the same. We have examined this chip out of the forestock and we have determined it is quite old, some attempt is made to sand it down, and it was finished the same color as the stock.
It was probably damaged in one of two ways. It received a shock on the top of the forestock that knocked off the chip, which means the top forestock has been replaced, or the stock was damaged as it was taken apart.
It is my opinion that this is unique and unto itself. As you can see here, we photographed the duplicate weapon that was purchased from the distributor of this rifle, the one who allegedly sent it to Dallas, which is photographed here on the top, and it does not show any of the damage that the second photograph does.
I have made a photographic enlargement of the chip out of the forestock.
We have here a United Press International photograph taken of the rifle being displayed outside of the homicide office in the Dallas police department headquarters. A photographic enlargement shows the same chip out of the stock in precisely the same location, going in the same direction, and same dimensions.
Taking 133 DeMohrenschildt, which at the time was the best photograph we had, we find the same defect in the wood, the same dimensions, and the same location. I might add that 134, which was discovered only this weekend in the Archives, even better illustrates this damage.
I might add, in all candor, with respect to the FBI, they did not have 133-A DeMohrenschildt. They did not have 133-A Stovall. They did not have 134 or did not recognize 134 as being first generation print.
So, their conservativeness they had then was based on the amount of evidence they had to work with, not on what we had to work with today.
Mr. FITHIAN. Then I take it, it is your testimony that the chip or the defect is sufficiently unique, with the corners or whatever, that spotting it in each of the pictures at least gives you the confidence that that rifle you are holding is the rifle that was photographed?
Sergeant KIRK. When I match that up with the scientific data Mr. McCamy has obtained from measuring it, this has to tilt the scales in the direction, yes, indeed it is the same rifle.
Mr. FITHIAN. I am going to ask Mr. McCamy in just a minute about any analysis he performed on this chip. Did you make measurement analysis and so forth?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes.
Mr. FITHIAN. All right. I will come back to you in just a minute. Do you know, Sergeant, whether or not the FBI at the time of the Warren Commission went through a process that would be the equivalent of yours, plus Mr. McCamy's, or can you shed any light on that?
Sergeant KIRK. The only testimony that I found in the Warren Commission report was relying on the testimony from one agent, Agent Shaneyfelt. There is no indication I could find where it was subjected to the analysis that this committee has on this weapon.
Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. McCamy, can you give us any measurement or photogrammetric process or anything that you did to further nail down this I think vital question.
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. We made measurements, measurements on the rifle, and on the photographs to ascertain that indeed this particular chip was in the right place.
Beyond that, however, I went to the Archives and made 21 photographs of the rifle using a variety of different kinds of illumination. On those photographs, it was possible to see a large number of nicks, scratches and so on, distinguishing marks.
I then went back through all of the photographs I had mentioned to you. In many instances--I believe in 56 different instances--I was able to find markings that appear on this rifle that were on the photographs that were made back there on the day of the assassination.
So, we are very confident that this is indeed the rifle that was carried from the book depository--oh, incidentally, I can carry it farther than that.
I found distinguishing marks of this rifle on a motion picture that was made at the time the police officer picked the rifle up off of the floor of the book depository. So that I think is very convincing evidence that it is the rifle.
Mr. FITHIAN. So what you are saying then is that in addition to the defect or the chip, whatever, you photographed and used--I guess what I would put sort of the equivalent of the camera scratch marks--you put those on the photographs that you took and then compared them analytically with the other defects that showed up on the rifle, or marking characteristics in other photographs that were existing at the time of the Warren Commission; is that what you are saying?
Mr. MCCAMY. That is right. They were compared on all of those photographs. I did not do photogrammetric measurements on all of them.
Mr. FITHIAN. Did you have any problem? Did you have any mismatches?
Mr. McCAMY. No, there were no mismatches. But it is, I think, appropriate to point out that whether or not one will see a particular scratch or discoloration depends strongly on illumination.
So, you cannot expect that all of the marks will show on all of the photographs.
Sergeant KIRK. I might point out, Mr. Fithian, since this is very brightly illuminated in this area here, you might not necessarily be able to see the same detail as in this photograph, which is evenly illuminated.
So, what Mr. McCamy is saying, it seemed identifiers would not show up in each photograph because they are not illuminated in the same manner.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you.
I have a good many more questions, Mr. Chairman. I would like to run over and record my vote.
I wonder if the counsel--I am not sure that I have done all that I wanted to do with this rifle section--but if the counsel has any questions of you. Otherwise, I would ask that we recess.
My running time is 5 minutes from here to the Chamber and back. I would ask that we recess for 5 minutes.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, we will go into recess for 5 minutes.
[Brief recess.]
Mr. FAUNTROY. The committee will come to order.
We will resume questioning of the witnesses by Mr. Fithian at this time.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to take one additional area of questioning at least, and that is whether or not if someone were really a photographic scientist, and really knew his or her stuff, whether they could by some process, however elaborate, fake a photograph and make it come out this good.
Is that improbable, beyond the realm of possibility, or what? How do you describe it?
Mr. McCAMY. We gave a lot of thought to that in our committee. We must say that we believe it is possible to make a fake photograph that we would not be able to detect.
Mr. FITHIAN. Did you attempt then to see how difficult it would be to fake this? I know you mentioned several times that you would have to catch the Sun at the right time, and have the backyard and so on.
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. It was I who made the assertion in our committee that if conditions were right, and if it were done right, and that a photographic scientist used what he knew to make a fake photograph, he could fool me.
So that sounded almost like I was throwing out some kind of challenge. One of the other members of the panel, Mr. Scott, is a very competent photographic scientist. He was once the vice president, the engineering vice president of the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers.
He 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.
So, that was an illustration to us that it is not quite as simple as it appears to be. Frank Scott came back to the committee saying this is not as easy as it looks.
So, I believe that it would be possible to make a fake, but it is very difficult.
Mr. FITHIAN. I thought, if I were trying to fake a photograph, I would not try to make it cut across the chin or the face. I would make it at say like the shirt collar line, or somewhere where there is already a line.
Now, that is just my own layman's view, that I wouldn't try to match up, a cut across the face. I guess what I am asking you is if you were faking a photograph, is that where you would try it?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. I think it makes very good sense to attempt to follow some natural line. If you can do that, it is going to be less noticeable. However, in the analysis that we did, of course we looked for exactly that kind of thing, and we did not find any evidence that this had been done on these photographs.
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. Unfortunately, we were not able to find other photographs of Oswald himself illuminated from a very high angle.
It would have been nice to have had such a photograph, but we didn't have it.
The closest approximation to the overhead lighting is in the upper right-hand corner of that display. That is more of a portrait type lighting. But even there the chin begins to be a little bit more flattened because that shadow is at the bottom of his chin.
Mr. FITHIAN. In the photo, in the two large blowups, the righthand 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.
Mr. FITHIAN. I am no longer troubled by the line across the chin because I think you can see that even in that much earlier picture before it is so pronounced in the upper right-hand corner of it-what is the exhibit number of the left-hand exhibit there--386.
I am not troubled by that line anymore. That doesn't bother me.
But the absence of the point of the chin altogether does. Let me ask you one more question, then.
Is the angle of the Sun and the shadows elsewhere in the picture-in other words, is that combination of the Sun and the other shadows convincing? With that Sun and that position, would that chin cast that shadow, so that it would blur out in a picture?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes. I think that the best evidence that we have for that is the police department profile view. Can we return to that?
Unfortunately, we do not have direct evidence. We do not have a photograph, other photographs of Oswald illuminated at this angle. But here we see that his chin comes down and back. There is apparently a rather wide, broad, flat area here.
If this were illuminated from above, you can see that the shadow, the shadow might very well be cast, even as high as this. It could be cast fairly high. If it were, then the apparent point that one sees in his earlier photographs would not show up.
This would appear to move up in this direction. In this photograph that was taken in the police station, he does have a fairly flat chin there. There is a cleft in there, and that seems to flatten it somewhat.
So, it looks to me as though this is quite consistent with a high level of illumination from high above him, casting this shadow across there.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you, Mr. McCamy. You may return. I would ask the clerk to put up exhibit JFK F-208.
Now, this is the picture of the model taken, I believe. What I want to ask, Mr. McCamy, is--well, then I want the one of the model, whatever the number is, F-271.
I just want to ask one question. What assumptions did you make when you were doing the tilting and angling for that photograph?
Mr. McCAMY. This was just an illustration of an effect.
Mr. FITHIAN. Let me rephrase a different question. Are you saying that, or aren't you saying, just to push you a bit, that in
order to keep that shadow right under the nose, in the same place, that you (a) have to tilt the head one way and, at the same time, rotate it on its axis a precise point, to a precise point, in order to keep the shadow there? Third, you are assuming that the camera, then, would have to move in somebody's hand to the next position.
Now, I am not a statistician, but the probability of that, all three of those things being present in order to keep that shadow there, seems to the layman to be a little high. It seems like you would have to--the probability would be that those three things would not come together at the same place, at the same time. Am I way off base, sir?
Mr. McCAMY. No. I don't think so. I think that you are right in saying that there would be a number of assumptions necessary, if we were to try to interpret the Oswald photograph from this demonstration of this effect.
But that is not the way the interpretation was done. In fact, the interpretation was done by a vanishing point analysis, and this is the standard technique for studying the shadows in a photograph.
If we bring back the vanishing point analysis photographs, you can, if you like, examine the lines and you will see that the shadows are where they ought to be. That is the best analysis.
Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. I have just one other question, Mr. Chairman.
It really isn't a question so much as a statement, and hopefully a response.
Historically I think it is fair to guess that since we have had criticism and analysis and assumptions and conclusions drawn by critics over the last 15 years, there are probably going to be some in the next 15 years.
In the area of photographic analysis, and assuming that there will be those who may differ with your conclusion and Sergeant Kirk's conclusion over the next while, I would like for you to tell the panel what kind of tests, what kind of approaches that you would use or other photographic experts would use, if they wanted to disprove your work 5 or 10 years hence, what kind of standards, what kind of tests would they apply to this.
Let me just go one step further. I take it that the simple transparency overlay you reject as inadequate, scientifically speaking to prove conclusively one way or the other.
Now, I guess what I am asking is, what would you insist that your peers or others who want to dispute and finally refute your conclusion, what kind of tests would you set up for us?
If I wanted to go out on my own in another 2 or 3 years and prove that you are wrong, what do I have to do? What kind of things will I have to do to convince other experts?
I won't convince you because you have concluded that you are right. But convincing others.
Mr. McCAMY. Fortunately, the analysis that we have done, and most of the things that I have talked to you about, are matters of measurement rather than matters of opinion. So that to check up all you would have to do is go back, get the original materials and go ahead and make the same measurements and go through the analysis.
You would want to take this up with other photogrammetrists. You might want to refer a question to the American Society of Photogrammetry. Their offices are right across the river in Virginia.
You could refer a question to the Optical Society of America, with headquarters here in Washington. You could refer a question to the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers, Inc., in the District of Columbia. They are all right here.
I might say that the American Society of Photogrammetry and the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers generally annually meet here in Washington, D.C. because there are so many specialists in that field right here.
So, there are specialists around, there are scientific societies that you could call to your aid. They would confirm that you were using the right methods, using the methods that are used for map making and so on, and then you can go back and do your analysis.
I had that in mind, in fact, when I did the analysis of the length of the rifles, the length of the components of the rifles, on all of those older photographs. I could have taken the dimensions and put them in a giant computer and asked for the answer.
I didn't do that. Instead, I derived the simplest equations that would serve this purpose. My report shows the derivation for the equations. Then I made the measurements with very simple measuring tools, simple millimeter scale, and some straight edges, and then did all the computations on a pocket calculator, with the thought in mind that even a high school mathematics teacher could, if he liked, follow me every step of the way and confirm whether or not I was right.
Mr. FITHIAN. Is this kind of detail in your report, written report to the committee?
Mr. McCAMY. Yes, sir.
Mr. FITHIAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no other questions.
Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. Gentlemen, at the conclusion of any witness' testimony, under the rules of the committee, that witness is entitled to 5 minutes in which to explain or make any comment they so desire upon the testimony they have given before this committee.
Sergeant Kirk and Mr. McCamy, at this time I extend to each of you 5 minutes for that purpose.
Mr. McCAMY. I have no comments, sir.
Sergeant KIRK. I have none at this time. I understand I will be back, so I will reserve.
Chairman STOKES. Right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Both of you are excused at this time.
