Numerous studies published in The American Journal of Psychiatry show that delusions and hallucinations are common in people suffering from dementia. An article published in 2000 highlighted a Utah study of elderly patients with dementia that found more than 60 percent of them suffered from psychiatric problems, including delusional thinking.
O’Donnell’s son, Tyge O’Donnell, lives in Las Vegas and is himself an anti-nuclear arms activist. He created The Phoenix Venture page on MySpace.com to highlight his father’s post-atomic images. He also believes he knows how his father ended up with prints of work by other photographers.
In the early ‘90s, Joe O’Donnell traveled to the U.S. National Archives in Maryland and found what he believed were some of his unaccredited photos, according to his son. The facility allows people to use its scanning equipment or bring their own to copy images, or they may order prints. Tyge O’Donnell says that, knowing his dad’s brusque Irish manner and diminished mental capacity, “he probably just walked out of the building with (the archives’ prints).”
Still, O’Donnell says, his father would never intentionally take credit for another photographer’s work.
“Any photographer in a sound state of mind would not take someone else’s photo, crop it, claim it as his own, and expect to get away with it,” he says.
And certainly not with one of the most famous photos of all time.
On November 25, 1963, more than 70 photographers huddled in a press corral meant for 30 across the street from St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington. Stan Stearns was one of the last to get a spot, squeezed in beside UPI colleague Frank Cancellare.
As the caisson prepared to roll away with the body of President John F. Kennedy, his widow Jackie bent down and whispered something into the ear of little John-John, who had turned 3 that day.
“His hand came up to a salute,” Stearns recalled. “Click! One exposure on a roll of 36 exposures.”
But that was just the beginning of the story. Using a telephoto lens (as O’Donnell claimed to have done for the picture he showed on CNN in 1999) Stearns snapped a wide angle showing John-John, Jackie, Caroline Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and others.
“Great film editors scan a photographer's film for pictures within the picture,” Gary Haynes, a retired UPI shooter and editor, wrote in his 2003 book Picture This!: The Untold Story and Classic Photos of UPI Newspictures. “Ted Majeski was UPI’s world class editor handling film at the JFK funeral. Stearns knew he had a great salute shot. Majeski saw a photo within that photo, a tiny part of the frame that turned a great photograph into an even greater one.
“Majeski had the lab crank the enlarger to the ceiling and put the print easel on the floor, creating a ‘close-up’ of John-John and the salute. UPI transmitted both versions of the picture, and the ‘close-up’ dominated play worldwide.”
Others had similar images, including Farrell and UPI’s own Harry Leder. The Associated Press got a salute image in color on Ektachrome, which could not be enlarged to show only John-John without losing sharpness, recalls former AP News global editor Hal Buell.
But Stearns’ shot was tight, crisp, and hit the wires first. Stearns recalls that when it ran, a number of publications gave him name credit. Many did not. His negative and the rights to it are now owned by the giant archive Corbis, which bought the Bettmann Archive, including all of UPI’s images, in 1995.
When O’Donnell’s obituary appeared in the Times, it was Gary Haynes who took one look and instantly recognized Stearns’ photo. He alerted his former colleague, whose reaction was understandably profane.
“The guy was a phony, may he rest in hell,” said Stearns, reached at home in Annapolis, MD. “This is the epitome of poor journalism. You check the source and double check the source. This thing ran in every news agency and they took the release and the obit and went with it without checking.”
