SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Earlier today, a recently surfaced 8-millimeter film that showed President John F. Kennedy's motorcade speeding toward a Dallas hospital moments after he was shot in November 1963 was sold at auction for over $137,000.
BOBBY LIVINGSTON: It's an incredible moment captured that nobody knew existed before.
DETROW: That's Bobby Livingston, the man who brought the film to auction. We were talking on a video call.
LIVINGSTON: Let me know if you can see it.
DETROW: Yeah, I see the film.
LIVINGSTON: She's down. He's still on top.
DETROW: Livingston is an executive with RR Auctions in Boston. He showed me the film reel that, until recently, had only been seen by a handful of people. For decades, it had been nearly forgotten in a Dallas home.
LIVINGSTON: You can see the driver, and you can see Clint Hill, and then you can clearly see Mrs. Kennedy's outfit, when we know, tragically, she's holding the president.
DETROW: And the flags are fluttering, and clearly, they are speeding down the highway to get to the hospital here. Wow.
LIVINGSTON: Watch the president's car coming...
DETROW: Just as remarkably, before that, the footage shows the full motorcade driving by and a big, happy crowd cheering and waving, just minutes before rifle shots would change the course of history. Then the hard pivot to that speeding motorcade and the agents trying to save Kennedy's life.
LIVINGSTON: To think that this had never come to light and it had never been seen was shocking to me. I was shocked to see it.
DETROW: Like, I feel like - like, I know exactly what you're talking about. I feel like we have the image of the Zapruder film, we have the limo going under the underpass. And then I feel like in terms of images in our mind, it cuts right to Lyndon Johnson walking out of Parkland Hospital. And everything that happened in between was out of sight, out of camera.
LIVINGSTON: Right. So this is that missing chapter. That missing, incredible moment of trying to save the president's life. In Zapruder, he clearly - they hit the gas, 80 miles an hour. They've disappeared from frame. Nothing exists after that moment. This would be the shot after Zapruder. It's a remarkable piece of film and a remarkable piece of American history, and I don't think you could ever tell this story without this footage.
DETROW: The film was shot by Dale Carpenter Sr. It was impossible to watch the footage and not think about this past summer and another assassination attempt of a president.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: A little bit of blood behind one ear.
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DETROW: This is live Special Coverage from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. We are bringing you some breaking news right now. Former President Donald Trump was just rushed off the stage during a rally in Butler, Pa. Trump appears to have been injured...
When that happened this summer, did that give any extra resonance to all of this stuff to you? I mean, I feel like there were just, like, a lot of things throughout that day that I was just, like, these are the sentences that people were saying at the Kennedy assassination. And this is happening in real time, and we were all making sense of this in the way that people were making sense of that. Different circumstances - but that kind of magnitude of event and surprising thing and then the video footage from the different angle and so many things. Like, I'm curious what you thought about all of that.
LIVINGSTON: The parallels between Trump and the Kennedy assassination were immediate to me, you know, when you start to see how this lone assassin gets up on that building, gains access when he shouldn't have. The results were different in November 1963, you know, unfortunately.
DETROW: After watching the footage with Livingston, I wanted to know more about the man who took it and why his family had kept it to themselves for so long. So we called up Carpenter's grandson.
We're joined now by James Gates. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JAMES GATES: Hey, thank you. Good to be here.
DETROW: You know, we just viewed the footage ourselves, and we saw President Kennedy's motorcade rushing down the highway to Parkland Hospital, moments after he was shot in Dealey Plaza. And I have a lot of questions for you, but I'm wondering, when did you first become aware of this reel of film in your family?
GATES: Oh, goodness. I was pretty young at the time. I was in my teens when my mom had told me about it, but I didn't really press any questions to her at the moment 'cause I just - I didn't know anything as a young kid.
DETROW: Yeah.
GATES: But yeah, I was pretty young, about 15, I guess.
DETROW: Had you heard stories from her or your grandfather about what happened that day, about him being there?
GATES: I never did get a chance to talk to my grandfather about it. I did talk to my mom briefly, but she didn't know a whole lot what was in the film. My mom just said that we had film from the assassination, and it wasn't talked about. It was very secretive, I guess.
DETROW: So, when did somebody first dig it up?
GATES: Oh, goodness. Well, when my mom gave me all the reels from the family, she mentioned that the reel from the - you know, the assassination was in the box, and I basically was the one that dug it up. I found it and transferred it to digital just to see what it was.
DETROW: What was that moment like?
GATES: Well, it was exciting 'cause I had never seen anything like it before and, at the same time, disappointing 'cause I kind of - in the back of my mind I had expected there to be more of the assassination or around that time. But then seeing the part where Kennedy was rushing to - being rushed to Parkland, that was shocking to me.
DETROW: What do you hope that this film being public in this way adds? Or what do you hope the impact is of the sale and the attention that's been generated because of it?
GATES: I honestly think that with Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent that climbed onto the back of the car to reach President Kennedy and Ms. Kennedy - he's a hero. And this shows him in a different light, I think, than what any interview he's probably ever done could have expressed because it's just - it's such a remarkable visual of him hanging onto the car, covering over Ms. Kennedy and President Kennedy. It really adds to that story and his heroism.
DETROW: Well, that's James Gates, joining us to talk about this reel of film that his grandfather shot. A film showing a new angle, a new glimpse into President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
James Gates, thank you so much.
GATES: Hey, thank you. I appreciate you having me on.
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