The Zapruder Film

My mother was a huge John and Jackie Kennedy fan. She was absolutely crushed on November 22, 1963. I was five, and came home from kindergarten, expecting to play checkers, like we always did, but instead found my mother glued to the TV. She moved the checkers to the floor in front of the TV, and my first memory of my life was that day. It was good training, I think, for what lay ahead.

She kept a series of newspapers, “The Kansas City Star,” from November 23, 1963 through November 26th. I still have them. She also bought this book, “The Torch Is Passed,” which the AP put together, and then sold to newspapers, who sold it to their subscribers under their own logo. Mine is from the “The Kansas City Star.”

So, when the New York Times Book Review reviewed a book about the Zapruder film, the 26 seconds of film that showed Kennedy’s assassination, I made a note to read it, and found it at the library by accident this week. It seemed unlikely that the book could be that interesting, but it turns out that it was fantastic. The writer, the granddaughter of Abraham Zapruder, uses the book to traverse the entire 20th century, from her grandfathers childhood in Russia, their flight from pogroms and Cossack cruelties, life in Jewish Brooklyn during the Great Depression, her grandparents relocation to a shiny new Dallas suburb, the inevitable success with the fashion house.

Ms. Zapruder is exacting in showing how her grandfather Abraham came to be standing on a retaining wall with his camera on November 22, 1963, filming the motorcade, and almost by accident, the murder of a President. The saga of the Zapruder film continues until 1996, when the federal government and the national archives paid the descendants of Abraham $16 million dollars for the film. So, if you get the chance, read the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Seconds-Personal-History-Zapruder/dp/1455541699