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Stone, guests JFK slayers make plans for `found' on `JFK' premiere • grassy knoll By Jane Sumner By Mark Potok (t-14-?1 sir Write of The Wks Morning Fews OF THE TIMES HERALD STAFF 1FR, the film that Variety calls "an You may too sure political conspiracy not be incendiary what Tom Wilson is showing thriller," premieres in Dallas at a ben- you when he starts his video, efit screening Dec. 19 at General but it's hard to ignore the re- Cinema's NorthPark 1 and 11 theatres- tired engineer's words. Oscar-winning di rector Oliver "You are looking right now Stone and guests will attend a recap. into the eye of the assassin of President Kennedy," he says FILM evenly as the tape rolls. tion at Newport's in The Brewery, 703 "You're looking at a mole on McKinney Ave.. after the 7 p.m. his cheek. screening. Gary Oldinan, who plays "1 can tell you right now, in the three-hour his eyes are brown." film, has been mentioned as one of the Using sophisticated tech- stars who may accompany Mr. Stone. nologies known as "image JFK, which filmed in Dallas in processing" and "spectral April and May, stars Kevin Costner as analysis," Wilson, 59, has , the New Orleans district spent three years examining attorney who prosecuted the only some of the most famous criminal case connected with the mur- photographs and films of the der. Others in the all-star cast include world's most famous assassi- Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe nation. What he claims he's Pesci, Kevin Bacon and Donald found seems incredible - Sutherland. even to the conspiracy buffs he addressed Friday night in Proceeds from the premiere will Dallas. benefit the Dallas Children's Health Project and the Children's Health The real killer, he says, is Fund, which provide medical care for firing from the grassy knoll: homeless children and their families, on one side of him is another and the Film Commission of North sniper, on the other, a collab- Texas. orating photographer. The North Texas film commissioner Please see 1FK, A-13 Roger Burke says, "JFK is already the most eagerly awaited and talked-about motion picture of the year. With just word-of-mouth that Oliver will be here, we've already had many requests for invitations from a broad spectrum of people." Tickets, which include the recep- tion, cost S100. Call the North Texas Commission at 621-0400. Corporate sponsorships are available. (24p., 02 0 1,2 6

Dallas Times Herald Sometimes, watching Wilson's it. So have many conspiracy the- video and listening to him ex- orists. plain its often indecipherable im- But Wilson said he's different. JFK ages is like watching the movie, He worked, in some cases, "The Fantastic Voyage," where -a From A-1 41 from copies of copies of photo- n-119 miniaturized submarine crew en- graphs. His analysis of the fa- ters the human body. Except in mous of the shoot- president's autopsy Wilson's case, zooming in on an ing was done on a copy made on photographs are faked; so is a fa- autopsy photo of the president, 'a $3 tape in a $150 VCR." But mous photo of Lee Harvey Os- you enter the hole in his throat Wilson said it doesn't matter. wald holding a sniper's rifle. where a tracheotomy was per- What he does, he said, is mea- There's a bullet in the president's formed. sure frequencies of light that back never before reported; and As you go down, Wilson points bounce off a photograph or film there's unreported metal in his out what he says is the bullet strip. The light is measured on head. hole and its configuration — a 250,000 solid-state charge-cou- "Basic," Wilson says as his vid- pattern he says proves the shot pled devices using a 256-shade eo plays. "Basic." came from the front, meaning it gray scale; the human eye can Hardly, retorted several au- could not have been fired by Os- perceive only 30 shades of gray. thorities who heard about Wil- wald, who is supposed to have Then his computer program de- son's claims to the Dallas assassi- fired from above and behind. velops a kind of layered picture, nation symposium. Said Robert Similarly, Wilson made these sometimes adding lifelike colors. Blakey, chief counsel and staff claims: director of the House Select 'Nothing is speculation' • Looking at the president's Committee on Assassinations, "Nothing is theory," he said. brain by examining one spot in which probed the killing in 1979: "Nothing is speculation." the Zapruder film shows that -You know the saying among The process, he said, is like that shot also was fired from in computer people, 'Garbage in, looking at a photo of a darkened front Wilson also claimed to be garbage out?' door leading into a hallway, able to pick out pieces of scalp This is garbage? which looks black to the human and brain matter as it flies Agreeing was David Belin, eye. His method 'peels away" through the air in a backward counsel to the Warren Commis- the layers of gray, going deeper arc. sion, which concluded that the and deeper and picking up ■ Probing several autopsy pho- Nov. 22, 1963, assassination was shades invisible to the eye. In the tographs shows a shot in the low- the work of Oswald acting alone. end, with the computer enhanc- "It's a series of massive lies," er left back and also shows thata ing the grays to make them visi- picture of the rear of the presi- he said. "The man is basically ble, you will see the man who is dent's head has been altered. making an outrageous claim." standing at the end of the hall. Other conspiracy theorists have 'Hard evidence' offered "Yes, some of these things can maintained that the photos were But Wilson, a soft-spoken, be done," said Michael Bove, a faked to cover up the direction of hard-of-hearing former U.S. Steel Massachusetts Institute of Tech- the shots. engineer, will not be deterred. nology professor who has worked U A photograph of Oswald at extensively on image enhance- Before Friday night, he had nev- his home holding a sniper's gun ment er gone public. He is doing so, he is actually of another man with "But the point at which it said in an interview, "because I Oswald's face superimposed. Part starts getting to be a little bit less have the first real piece of hard of the Zapruder film also has certain technology is when some- evidence? been altered. one shows shows you a (blurry) The evidence, he said, is film • A "white puff" on a Polaroid — the same film that has been picture and says I can identify all the cars, and worse, all the snapshot of the grassy knoll - probed for the 28 years since long identified by some theorists Kennedy's death. Experts from Fords," he said. 'Fundamentally, all you've got to go with is what's as smoke from a gun — is just NASA and the FBI, called by the that. Wilson's computer program House committee that reexam- on the film. Anything else you pull out of there, you're making takes you through the halo of ined the 's smoke, purportedly showing the controversial conclusions, studied assumptions about." racy .3

Saturday, November 16, 1991 A-13

Jesse 1-ternbucteeMailas Ttrnes Hrit?eld Dr. Cyril Wecht, left, says Torn Wilson has done "beautiful work" in delving Into the .1Fii assassinatlon,-; gunman's eye, a mole on his he said, "I could probably tell were authentic. cheek and a rifle's scope; a earn- you the name on the badge." era to the gunman's right, operat- Gary Mack, a Texas assassion- Cyril Wecht, a Pennsylvania Lion theorist who nevertheless ed by another conspirator, and forensic pathologist and one-time discounted many of the theories an adjacent puff of smoke, mark- president of the American Acad- ing where another sniper fired being espoused Friday, said he4.1 a emy or Forensic Sciences, has interviewed Wilson for hours. ;;,' fifth of a second earlier, but examined Wilson's results and on missed. Wilson also claimed he Friday called it "beautiful work." "He doesn't really know whit can see the killer's eagle-shaped Wecht — who gave a thunderous information the computer is pdt- badge — indicating the assassin speech at the conference refer- ting into the picture. The coni- puter is just reacting to 'noise,' wore the uniform of a federal of- ring to conspiracy theorists' at- adding material, altering ficial — and the outline of his tempts to get at the truth as "this name plate. glorious quest, this magnificent sharpening it. He doesn't really struggle' — said he endorsed know what it's doing." • Name on badge possible Wilson's work but was unsure if "It's like ink blot tests," ie 'If I had an original (photo}," the photographs he worked from said. "Magic is a polite term." i(p INI JGUING TALE tv Witness to slaying of JFK says she saw gunmen, gave chase By Todd Copilevitz S:alf Write of rat Dallas lionling Sews The truth be told, went to trying to attract the attention of a cute police officer. But that alone probably wouldn't have drawn 300 people to listen in- tently to her every word 28 years later. No, Ms. Hill was the center of at-

• 'JFK' film opening- 5C tention Friday morning because for the first time she was describing publicly what she saw in Dealey Plaza the day that President John F. Kennedy was killed. And for the assassination buffs gathered in Dallas for the three-day Assassination Symposium on John F. Kennedy, her account was cap- tivating. "I hope It went OK," Ms. Hill said after the first part of her panel dis- cussion at the Hyatt Regency Dallas at Reunion. "I don't come out with what I have to say very easily." For many of the people attend- ing the conference, this was why they made the trip from 30 states and five countries. Seven eyewitnesses to either the shooting or the handling of the president's body were there to tell their tales and take questions. Each audience member had a particular aspect of the assassina- tion or subsequent investigation that intrigued them, and they came to learn more. "Now that knoll where you saw a gunman has a tree on it. Was he on the right or left of the tree from your vantage point?" one man asked Ms. Hill. although the signifi- The %Ca *mug ,Nevi Juan GIrtig cance of the answer was not ex- J a saw the assassins- nedy, signs autographs Friday at a Please see WOMAN on Page 38A ti 4 at John F. Ken- conference on the slaying. far 5" 01

Woman tells of gunmen at JFK slaying

Continued from Page 33A. couldn't see us if we were in a Then this spring, movie director crowd," she said. came to visit. He was plained. working on JFK, his soon-to-be-re- • The assassination buffs were The two women were looking at more enthusiastic than usual Fri- the book depository and the grassy leased movie about the assassina- tion on Nov. 22, 1963. day after a high-powered keynote knoll on Elm Street west of the de- "Oliver had dinner with me, and Speech that morning by Dr. Cyril pository — where conspiracy theor- really he was the one who gave me Wecht, an expert on Mr. Kennedy's ists believe the fatal shot came from the courage to tell my story'," she autopsy. — when the shots started to ring said. • He urged the crowd to hound lo- out. Ms. Hill insists that she saw two So she has collaborated with Dal- eaI newspapers Into reporting more gunmen, including one who was fir- ing from behind a picket fence on las author Bill Sloan for JFK: The an the assassination. He also rallied which is the audience in an attack on the the knoll. Last Dissenting Witness, Warren Commission report, which She decided to chase one of the due out next year. In the meantime, she saw her ex- concluded that Mr. Kennedy was men as he ran, but two men in killed by a lone gunman, Lee Har- trench coats grabbed her by the perience re-created in the Dealey Plaza scenes of Mr. Stone's movie_ VeY Oswald. firing a rifle from the shoulder and instead took her to Texas School Book Depository. the Dallas County Records Build- The combination of the movie Dr. Wecht got a thunderous ova- ing. There, she said, they disputed and her book is likely to lead to tion when he demanded that every her account of hearing four to six more speaking engagements, Ms. library in the country move the re- shots, and then issued a stern warn- Hill conceded. Her appearance Fri- port to the fiction section. ing: day already brought a request to ap- The Maury Povich Show, a Later in the morning, the "'You would be very wise to pear on eyewitnesses got their turn. keep your mouth shut,' " she re- syndicated TV talk show. Ms. Hill, a third-grade teacher called one of the men telling her. "I It's all rather overwhelming for from H.S. Thompson Learning Ceti- never have been that wise, I guess." a woman who's real motivation that ter, told of persuading a police offi- Through the years, Ms. Hill has infamous day was landing a date, cer to let her and a friend stand in never made a secret of what she Which begs the obvious question the median so they could get a bet. saw. Although she has answered about the success of her romantic ter.look at the president questions from some authors, she endeavor. has been hesitant to discuss it with "Yeah, I definitely caught his "Well, actually there were a cou- the ple cute motorcycle officers that we people investigating the conspir- eye," she said. But that's one of is keeping. were interested in, and they acy. secrets she 0141..2._ 4 6 Last year's hot JFK theory conspicu By Mark Potok Meeting missing man who swore dad was killer OF THE TIMES HERALD STAFF , in Dallas — the same group that co- posedly knew everything, was too sick It was an absence that spoke vol- sponsored last week's Assassination to be interviewed. White's handlers re- umes. Symposium on John F. Kennedy — fused to name ..co-conspirators they As three days of Kennedy assassina- presented a huge fanfare for the unem- said they'd identiflecL.The secret ca- tion conspiracy theorizing drew to an ployed handyman. Wearing a baseball bles giving. Roscoe White his orders end Saturday, one of the most rem cap. White announced that his father, were gone, .too •a private investiga- able things to emerge was the lack f Roscoe White, killed the president on tor, center _offiliaLs said, absconded virtually any mention of Ricky. Don the orders of the CIA. , with them. • White — the man who was supposed His story was carried around the "When I hear aome of this nonsense, to unlock the mystery. world. But then it died. After all, just 15 months ago, offi- - I feel a little lite Dr. Frankenstein," The diary that told all could never 4 said Mark Lfine,imcnen as the gra.ndfa- cials of the JFK. Assassination Center be produced. White's mother, who sup- then of the con*iracy researchers be-

DALLAS TIMES HERALD ly provide a forum for them to be heard — although they both JFK said Friday that they still believe most of Ricky White's story. But ously absent From A-27 NijIl.1 many don't remember it that way. cause he wrote the first book question- "I think it is fair to say it was ing the Warren Commission conclusion "Let's face it," began Jim center-sponsored," Jerry Rose, a that a Ione gunman killed Kennedy. Mans, author of "Crossfire: The New York sociology professor "The monster is starting to move on Plot That Killed Kennedy," a and assassination research jour- its own." comprehensive 1989 book that nal publisher, said of the White It wasn't the first time that JFK As- reviews the literature of conspira- story. sassination Center officials had pre- cy theories. Howard said the White story - "The center said we have which also was being backed by sented the "solution" to history's most solved the assassination: It was famous homicide. Several conspiracy a for-profit corporation hoping to researchers attending the symposium Charles Nicoletti firing from the sell book or movie deals — was that ended Saturday said it had hap- grassy knoll accompanied by floated before being fully pened before. Johnny Rosselli. They were em- checked out because of a possi- phatic about it. Less than three ble risk. "We had the news con- months later, they said we have Please see JFK, A-29 ference at that time period be- solved it: It is Roscoe White. cause we thought there was a "That tends to detract From danger factor," he said. "We felt their credibility." ... our lives were in danger." On Saturday night, Gary Shaw, And he said much remains un- a co-director of the center, told; he kept Ricky White away helped present yet another "reve- from the conference because his lation" — the identities of the investigation is continuing. "three tramps," shabbily dressed White's account, he added, is "ab- men supposedly seen near the solutely true." assassination site, and their sup- Several researchers also criti- posed role in the slaying. cized the for-profit center for •"It's the assassin of the month making money off the confer- club," said Gary Mack, a re- ence — as well as for getting an searcher who, with Lane. feels $80,000 payment from filmmaker unsubstantiated theorizing dis- Oliver Stone to act as a consul- credits their own serious ques- tant on his about-to-be-released tioning. movie on the assassination. To be fair, Shaw and co-direc- Said Lane. "The exploration of tor Larry Howard now say that should they do not sponsor theories, on- not be a business "