John Menick

Just days after a suspicious auction of an infamous window, an eerie new 8mm film surfaces capturing the first lady and President Kennedy moments before the assassination. And it’s released on President’s Day no less.

Except for the footage’s crisp, Kodachrome-bright imagery, there is nothing obviously outstanding about its 39 seconds, but, like the dodgy window, its origins are fairly strange. Is it possible to ask without a hint of conspiratorial innuendo why it was released now? As with the window auction, Dallas Morning News has the most detailed coverage:

After the motorcade passed, [the cameraman] Mr. [George] Jefferies returned to his office, not aware that the president had been shot.

After he had the film developed, “I showed it to a few people and then put it in a drawer, and frankly, I forgot all about it.”

He casually mentioned it more than a year ago to his daughter and son-in-law, Bonnie and Wayne Graham, who live in suburban Fort Worth. They asked to see it, and Mr. Jefferies later gave it to them.

Mr. Graham called Mr. Mack about a year ago to ask if the film might be valuable. The curator not only thought it might have historical value, he asked Mr. Graham if he’d be interested in donating it to the museum.

“I talked about the tax advantages, and he sounded interested,” Mr. Mack said. “As far as I know, he didn’t shop it around before he gave it to us.”

After museum officials acquired the film, they had it professionally restored to bring out the original color and eliminate scratches, he said.

Though the movie is the sixth in the museum’s collection, and is of far less historical interest than the Zapruder film (which is owned by the federal government), its public release generated intense interest.