Exhibit A: The 1928 Frame

Photostat reproduction of a single frame, November 1928. This is the last image of the subject whose provenance the Regime accepts without reservation.

Note the count: four fingers, ungloved, wrapped around the wheel of a working vessel. Note the eyes — the honest pie-cut eyes of a mouse with nothing to hide. Note that he is steering, which is to say: in control of where he was going.

He was never photographed in control of anything again.

The original nitrate is held at a location known to the biographers. A certified print travels with the testimony.

CHAIN OF CUSTODY: recovered from a projectionist’s estate sale, Lakewood, Colorado. The projectionist’s family asked only that we keep counting. We keep counting.