Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

205  Norman Similas' pictures and negatives


Compare:
67  Bob Jackson’s Houston Street Picture
100 The Sally Holt picture
111 “The Ralph Simpson movie”
135 Beverly Oliver's Super 8 Yashica color movie of the assassination

  "The reporter took six negatives, and
 days later, Similas learned that the negatives had been lost." 


Norman Similas died in 2009. Kirk Similas says his father received phone calls and visits from conspiracy
buffs right up until the end of his life. Despite the mounting doubt, and lack of proof, his father's story
never changed.

"I'm sure that picture existed," Similas says. "It's gone missing."

(Trevor Dunn, Did Toronto man's photo show 2 shooters?)


Norman Similas passed away in 2009.

Partially declassified government files on the JFK assassination reveal that a joint FBI/RCMP investigation was
skeptical of the existence of a photograph allegedly showing two men positioned at the window where the WC
concluded a "sniper" fired at President Kennedy.

Since witnessing the assassination, Toronto resident Norman Similas has maintained that he took a photo of the
TSBD at the very moment shots were being fired at the motorcade. Similas claimed he was lined up with the
sixth floor window and snapped a picture of two men sharing the same location from which he said a rifle barrel
was pro-truding. However, Similas could not produce the photo for authorities.

Recently, the Canadian National Archives in Ottowa released an FBI/RUMP file on Norman Similas. They indicate
that a joint US/Canadian investigation concluded that Similas made up the story for financial gain and notoriety.
Unless the actual photo showing two figures in the window surfaces(a bigger bombshell than the first public
viewing of the Z film) the findings of the FBI/RUMP will no doubt stand unchallenged. In the absence of the
photograph, a review of certain documents is needed to pass reasonable judgment on Similas's account.

CHRONOLOGY

* From Nov.17-21, Similas attended a bottlers' convention in Dallas, reporting for a Canadian beverage industry
   journal.
* November 22: Similas witnesses the assassination of JFK and promptly leaves town. [What follows are
   statements to the press and memos related to those statements.]

On July 15, 1964, Liberty Magazine, a Toronto publication, prints an interview with Similas entitled "The DALLAS
PUZZLE." Reporter Kenneth Gamble Armstrong, claimed Similas approved its contents, which included, "While I
attended a national convention of the carbonated beverage bottlers ... I interviewed Vice President Lyndon
Johnson and photographed him in several informal poses. I spent more than an hour chatting with Jack Ruby in
his nightclub." [Nov. 22] "I witnessed from a distance of less than seven feet the assassination of President
Kennedy, and unwittingly photographed his assassin or assassins as a rifle was leveled at him from a nearby
building. I am convinced that if Oswald was the assassin--and this has never been definitely proven--he was
not alone when he aimed from the sixth floor window of the depository. One of the pictures I took as the
presidential car passed showed two figures beside the gun barrel in the window. A reporter for the Dallas Times
also saw two figures. His newspaper published that story too. (The FBI determined that Similas was referring to
photographer Robert H. Jackson.) More than seven months have passed since the horrors of Dallas. Never a day
passes but what the projector has not flipped in my mind, and the scenes tumble out in sequence after
sequence. I can see Lyndon Johnson smiling as he pushed his hand into coat and says, 'Shall I pose like
Napoleon?' In the semi-darkness of the entrance of his night club, Jack Ruby throws a bear-like arm around my
shoulders and ushers me to a table. He is saying, 'Save your film. Why shoot the entertainers when you can
photograph the President tomorrow? He'll be passing by, just down the street.' There is a fade-out and I'm
standing on the curb across from the Texas School Book Depository. I have selected a spot not far from the
underpass where the crowd has thinned out. As the crowds cheer and wave, the limousine slowly passes the
Book Depository." Part I of the story ended here, to be continued. However, the magazine folded up, but I
have obtained a copy and it will be printed further below.



In late November of 1963, Pepsi scheduled a corporate meeting in Dallas, Texas. This
meeting coincided with a national soda pop bottlers convention there. Pepsi invited
former Vice President Richard Nixon to Dallas for the corporate meeting. While he was
in Dallas, on November 21, 1963, Nixon gave a press conference in which he criticized
the policies of President John F. Kennedy. (Video with sound after 55 seconds)

In the meantime, a 9/8/64 telex was sent from Hoover to the RUMP: "URGENT--appreciate knowing if you have
on record any reference to one NORMAN SIMILAS or Toronto Canada being an eyewitness within ten feet to
the assassination of President Kennedy on Nov.22/63." On 9/10, a subsequent FBI memo continued, "The
President's Commision has requested that the author of this article (from Liberty Magazine be contacted and the
photograph referred to be obtained, if possible. The Commission has also requested that the name of the
presumably Dallas Times reporter referred to in the article be determined in order to ascertain whether such a
picture ever existed." On 9/11, an RUMP memo sought information about Similas, with an awareness that it was
reported he had taken a photo showing two persons "at window from which fatal shots fired at late President
Kennedy." Subsequent memos identified Robert Jackson as the Dallas individual in question, adding that he
recalled hearing the shots, looking up, and seeing a rifle being pulled inside the window, but could not see the
person holding the rifle. He also noted the presence of two "Negro individuals" in the window immediately below
the window in which he saw the rifle.

Part II of the Similas account follows: "At the corner of three streets intersecting Main, I could see that large
crowd thinned somewhat. I checked my setting of my 120 Japanese camera, glanced upward to verify the
position of the sun and stepped off the curb to catch an early view of the presidential procession. Time seemed
to stand still as we heard the first shot. The president's car was now less than ten feet from me. Another
agonizing second passed, and with the exception of this one grotesque incident, everything around me seemed
so normally parade like. By this time I was close enough to the car to have kicked the side of it. A second and
third shot were fired. Still no-one seemed to have any idea as to where the shots were coming from. My camera
had methodically returned to my cheek and I flipped the shutter. The Presidential limousine had passed me and
slowed down slightly. My camera was directly angled toward the [TSBD] in the back-ground. The picture that I
took on the curb of Elm Street was trained momentarily on an open sixth story window. The camera lens
recorded what I could not possibly have seen at that moment--a rifle barrel extended over the window sill.


Similas can not be detected in the Zapruder film

When the film was developed later, it showed two figures hovering over. I returned to my hotel room, packed
and boarded a bus for Chicago....Upon my return to Toronto, I submitted my developed negatives to a daily
newspaper. When they were not used on Monday, November 25, I phoned and asked that they be returned.

Later I received a fat cheque in the mail, but the one negative which clearly showed what I believe to be two
figures in the window of the asssassin's nest was missing. When i pressed for it, I was told that this negative
had somehow become lost. It has never since been returned to me."

On 9/16, two Mounties visit Similas and take a statement. Note the differences from the narrative above: "The
position I finally took was approximately 250 or 300 yards west of the TSBD building. Approximately five minutes
later the auto-cade appeared at the corner of Main and Houston. I took my first picture as the lead motorcycle
passed in front of me. At the same time as I took the first picture I heard the first shot fired. I didn't take any
more pictures until a bus carrying the Presidential Press Party came into view. [En route to Chicago, I read a
Dallas account of the assassination, which] indicated that he (Jackson) observed two people and the rifle barrel
being withdrawn from the window in the building." Similas then tells that others developed his film, and was told
that what he had was duplication of already existing photos. A Toronto Telegram reporter contacted Similas to
see his negatives, and noted "there looks like two people at this window. Similas agreed that two objects were
visible, and noted that the window was structurally different from the ones beneath it. It was agreed that the
negative might have shown two people with a rifle barrel between them. The reporter took six negatives, and
days later, Similas learned that the negatives had been lost and received a check for $50 from the Telegram.

On 9/17, one of the Mounties filed a report not complimentary to Similas, noting he became "nervous and
unsure of himself." On 9/18, the reporter, Colin Davies, was interviewed, and told investigators that it was
Similas who suggested there were images in the photos. "Davies said he felt that it was the power of
suggestion and that Similas wanted to see two people in the negative so badly that he actually believed he
did."

Davies said the negatives were worthless, and that they were lost, so a check was sent to compensate
Similas. On 9/24, the editor of the defunct Liberty Magazine was interviewed. He indicated that Similas had
both a story and photos for sale, and Similas swore the photos had been mailed to him. "...however, they
never did arrive."

The RCMP report concluded, "The foregoing statement indicates that SIMILAS knowingly deceived ARMSTRONG
into buying the story by promising him pictures which he knew to be non-existent." Another weakness noted
was that Similas claimed to have mailed the photos three months after receiving the check from Davies, who
lost the photos.

The RCMP concluded, "I believe it is reasonable to conclude that a picture of two men in the 6th Floor window
never existed....at least not in a picture taken by Norman Similas." [RUMP file no. 63-HQ-1180-!-Q-112]

(Rick Nelson, The Similas Affair)