[NOISE] It looks like a police convention.
We have never seen as many Dallas police officers in one location in all of our
years of covering Dallas news, but they are here in great profusion.
This [SOUND] is a split-second, timed operation for the Secret Service,
and the Air Force, and the Signal Corps.
[MUSIC]
>> Every artifact has a story.
[MUSIC]
And that story is in the details.
>> This was one of the most significant events of the 20th century for Americans.
And it is something that just continues to have interest for the public.
Over the years, researchers have asked for access to these materials.
But they are somewhat fragile, and we do have preservation concerns.
>> So we wrote a letter asking for access, it was denied.
We wrote another letter appealing it, and that was denied too.
>> NARA was interested in having
a preservation of these artifacts that are greater than what they had before, which
are the artifacts themselves, and then also photographs that were getting dated.
>> We figured that this was the time to explore three-dimensional imagery,
and that's when we started to reach out to
federal agencies who had the capability to do this.
And NIST had the capability to produce the imagery that we wanted.
>> Every artifact has a story.
>> Every possible precaution has been taken.
The reception line has formed, and there is Mrs. Kennedy.
>> The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street, and
it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the Trade Mart.
[SOUND] There appears as though something has happened, and
the motorcade sees something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade group.
Something has happened in the motorcade, we stand by, please.
>> From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official,
President Kennedy died at 1 p.m.
Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.
>> And that story is in the details.
>> I do think, because I've devoted much of my life to it, professional life,
that it's always important to bring technology to bear on these old questions.
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>> Using new technology that's cutting-edge with high definition
photography, both digital and analog, we're able to preserve these
artifacts in a manner that will probably take care of many generations after us.
>> You're going to see every groove in the bullet, every nick.
It's going to be a very true representation of the original.
I think that the public will find that by conducting these scans and
making the data of the enhanced, magnified images of the bullets available,
that they will have more access than they've ever had to these materials.
>> Every artifact has a story.
And through the collaboration between NIST and the National Archives,
the story of these artifacts can be shared for generations to come.
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