In 1966 Vince Salandria, who first identified the different issues, wrote to LIFE editor Ed Kern. Kern’s reply has been quoted by Salandria, Policoff and others, especially the first few sentences. I include the letter here in its entirety.

The “Thompson” Kern refers to is Josiah, aka Tink. The “recent story” is “A Matter of Reasonable Doubt,” in the November 25, 1966 LIFE, which called for a re-opening of the assassination investigation.

The balance of the letter, I think, lays the groundwork for the ongoing pseudo-debate over the details of the assasination, and the promotion of confusion and mystery.

“To me,” Salandria observed many years later, “the three versions of LIFE and LIFE’s lies about what the Zapruder film revealed show in microcosm an elegant example of how the U.S. media criminally joined with U.S. governmental civilian personages, and with the national security state apparatus to employ deceit in seeking to prop up the Warren Report.”