Did
Oswald Shoot Tippit?
A
Review of Dale Myers' Book With Malice: Lee
Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit
Michael T. Griffith
2002
@All Rights Reserved
Second Edition
Revised and Expanded on 7/25/2009
It is a given among those who accept the
Warren Commission's lone-gunman theory that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Officer J.
D. Tippit after Tippit allegedly stopped him about a mile from Oswald's
residence approximately 45 minutes after the assassination. For Warren
Commission supporters the Tippit killing is a "Rosetta Stone" that
proves Oswald must have been guilty of murdering President Kennedy. This is the
view that author Dale Myers presents in his book With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit
(Milford, Michigan: Oak Cliff Press, 1998). But just how strong is the case
against Oswald in the Tippit slaying? And even if Oswald did in fact shoot
Tippit, would this prove he killed President Kennedy? In point of fact, the
case against Oswald in the Tippit slaying is laced with holes and
contradictions, and there is evidence that suggests Tippit was hunting for
Oswald before anyone could have known Oswald was a suspect.
General Comments
* On a technical note, Myers' book contains
some rather basic grammatical mistakes. For example, Myers consistently misuses
the word "inference" to mean something was implied, when in fact the
word means the opposite. The word he should have used was
"implication." In a couple places he mismatches nouns and verbs. He
repeatedly misuses the word "none" when he says "none
were." "None" is a contraction of "not one." The
correct phrase is "none was," not "none were." In addition,
Myers employs the errant phrase "the reason why," as in "the
reason why Nelson proceeded" (the correct usage is "the reason Nelson
proceeded" or "this was why Nelson proceeded"). Such errors in
grammar should have been caught by the publisher's editor prior to publication.
* Myers repeatedly omits important
information that contradicts his conclusions.
* On several occasions, Myers buries
important contrary information in his endnotes, which he surely knows most
readers will not bother to study.
* Myers often reaches conclusions that are
contradicted by his own raw data.
* Some of Myers' speculations and theories
are later stated as though they are established facts.
* Myers is noticeably harder on witnesses
whose accounts contradict his views than he is on witnesses whose accounts he
likes.
* Myers frequently relies on FBI interview summaries,
but he never mentions that numerous witnesses complained that those summaries
were inaccurate and incomplete.
* Myers fails to mention that many witnesses
changed their stories in ways that favored the lone-gunman scenario by the time
they testified before the Warren Commission months after giving their initial
statements.
* Myers fails to mention that some
witnesses, to include a former Marine sergeant and two former Kennedy aides,
reported that FBI agents pressured them to change their stories because what
they had to say tended to refute or contradict the lone-gunman scenario. Given
Myers' frequent reliance on FBI witness statements, the reader would be well
served to know this fact.
* Myers fails to inform the reader that
everything we know about what Oswald allegedly said during his interrogations
comes through the filter of
* Myers either ignores or only superficially
deals with several well-known, widely discussed problems with the case against
Oswald in the Tippit slaying.
* At times Myers contradicts himself.
Let us now examine some specific problems
with Myers' claims.
Why Tippit Would Have Stopped
"Oswald" and the Alleged Change in Direction
According to Myers, as the assailant
approached the corner of 10th and Patton, he saw Tippit's car coming up the
street in his direction and therefore suddenly spun around and started walking
in the opposite direction, which made Tippit suspicious of him (pp. 64-65).
Myers cites William Scoggins' Warren Commission (WC) testimony, which does in
fact imply a change in direction. However, Scoggins initially said nothing
about any change in direction. When he was interviewed by the Secret Service on
12/2/63, he said,
I noticed a man
walking west on 10th Street. . . . The man walking west on 10th Street stopped
at a point just about directly in line with the front bumper of the police cruiser.
And just a second or two after the man
stopped near the car's front bumper, he began talking with Tippit. Not a word
or hint about any change in direction.
In a message in the JFK Research Forum,
Myers protested that Scoggins said the man never passed his cab. But this is not what Scoggins said in his first
sworn statement. As noted above, Scoggins said the man was walking west and
that as he was walking west he stopped near the front bumper of the patrol
car. All
the initial police and federal reports on the shooting paint the same picture.
Myers cites Mrs. Helen Markham to support
his change-in-direction theory. But, Mrs. Markham, like Scoggins, initially
said nothing that would support the idea that the killer suddenly changed
direction. The first time Mrs. Markham said anything that could be viewed as
possibly supporting a change in direction was months later--in her Warren
Commission testimony. The police interviewed Mrs. Markham extensively on the day
of the shooting, yet all the initial law enforcement reports on the slaying
state the killer was walking west when Tippit stopped him. Furthermore, not one
of Mrs. Markham's early sworn statements on the slaying says or suggests the
killer suddenly changed direction.
Myers' last change-in-direction witness is
Jack Tatum. But Tatum didn't give his story until 14 years after the fact.
Also, Tatum's story includes an incident that no other witness reported seeing.
Tatum said the gunman walked over to Tippit as he lay on the ground and shot
him in the head. No other witness reported seeing anything like this happen.
Tatum also said the killer was walking east. This claim is powerfully
contradicted by the available evidence.
The initial police and Secret Service reports on the shooting said the
killer was walking west, toward the patrol car. Scoggins said the same thing in
his first sworn statement. It would appear that Mrs. Markham said the same
thing when she spoke with police right after the shooting. Two other witnesses
likewise said the killer was walking west, not east, and thus toward the patrol
car, not away from it. If the police or the Secret Service found a single
witness who said the killer was walking away from the patrol, they failed to
say a word about it in any of their reports. Additionally, not one of the
initial sworn statements from any of the eyewitnesses says the killer was
walking east or that he suddenly changed direction as the patrol car
approached.
But Myers needs this change in direction in
order to try to explain why Tippit would have stopped the assailant, especially
if the assailant was in fact Oswald. By all accounts, the man was walking along
normally. And Myers admits it's unlikely Tippit would have stopped the man on
the basis of the vague description that went out over the police radio. So if
the man didn't suddenly change direction when he saw the police car coming his
way, why, then, would Tippit have stopped him, since he was just walking along
in a normal manner? Myers doesn't want to answer this question, so he assumes
the assailant suddenly turned around when he saw the approaching police car and
that this was what caused Tippit to stop him. The weight of the evidence,
however, indicates the assailant was walking west, toward the car, when Tippit
stopped him.
Did Tippit really "stop" the man?
The witness accounts can be quite reasonably interpreted to mean both men
recognized the other and began to have what Mrs. Markham described as a
"friendly" chat. But Myers can have none of this because he must
assume Tippit stopped the man because he suddenly turned around and started
walking the other way.
Myers' change-in-direction theory
contradicts what he says elsewhere about Oswald. Later in the book Myers
describes Oswald as "a master at self-control" (p. 308) and
"normally calculating" (p. 359). Myers also observes that Dallas
police officials took notice of how calm, cool, and collected Oswald was during
his interrogation sessions (see, for example, pp. 198-199). And we're supposed
to believe this is the same guy who supposedly got so rattled at the sight of
an approaching police car that he made the dumb mistake of literally
"spinning" around and heading in the opposite direction, which of
course would have aroused a policeman's suspicion?
More can be said about Oswald's demeanor
under pressure. When Officer Marrion Baker stopped Oswald in the Book
Depository's second-floor lunchroom about 90 seconds after the assassination,
pointed a gun at him, and demanded to know who he was, Oswald was calm and
relaxed. Are we really supposed to believe this is the same man who allegedly
spun around and changed direction simply because he saw a police car coming up
the street in his direction?
It should be emphasized that all the initial police and federal
reports on the Tippit slaying say the killer was walking west when Tippit
encountered him.
The Tip to Officer McDonald in the
Theater
Myers attempts to explain the early account
from Officer M. N. McDonald, which he gave to a journalist just two days after
the slaying, that he was tipped off to Oswald's location in the Texas Theater
by a man who was sitting in one of the theater's front rows.
In the story, which was published in the Dallas Morning News just two days after
the shooting, McDonald was quoted as saying, "A man sitting near the front
. . . tipped me the man I wanted was sitting on the third row from the rear on
the ground floor and not in the balcony." Myers knows this account
suggests Oswald might have been set up. So, he opines that McDonald was
actually referring to Jimmy Brewer, and that McDonald simply didn't know
Brewer's name at the time he spoke with the journalist (pp. 623-624 n 495).
This is what McDonald told the WC months later. But Myers should know this
explanation doesn't fit what McDonald told the journalist. Brewer was not
sitting in any of the seats: He was standing near the rear door looking through
the curtains that were draped around the screen. (By the way, Sylvia Meagher
said McDonald signed the story that appeared in the newspaper.)
There are other problems with the argument
that McDonald's mystery tipper was Brewer. Apparently Brewer never spoke with
McDonald alone, but to a group of police officers which included McDonald. When
Brewer gave his description of the man whom he had followed into the theater to
Captain Westbrook and the others, the lights had not been turned on yet. The lights only came on as McDonald and
Officer Walker stepped out from behind the exit curtains. Brewer had not pointed out Oswald to anyone--he merely
gave his general location and a general description.
It was after
this point, i.e., after McDonald
stepped out from behind the curtain, that McDonald, according to the news story
that he signed, said a man sitting in one of the front rows tipped him to the exact row where Oswald was sitting.
Brewer had only told the police officers that the man he had followed was
sitting toward the rear of the theater and that he was wearing a brown shirt.
Again, when Brewer spoke with Westbrook, McDonald, and the others, the lights
hadn't been turned on yet.
The above information is based on Myers' own
treatment of the events that came just before McDonald started going up the
aisle inside the theater (see With Malice,
p. 173). Apparently Brewer simply gave Oswald's general location and described
the shirt he was wearing, but did not actually "point him out" to the
policemen, possibly because it was still dark.
As mentioned, according to the 11/24/63 news
story, it was after this point, after
McDonald began heading up the aisle, that McDonald encountered the tipper who
was sitting in one of the front rows. This man, said McDonald, told him the
exact row on which Oswald was seated.
Attacking Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig
Myers says Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig's
account of seeing Oswald get into a station wagon that left Dealey Plaza lacks
credibility (p. 215). After a great deal of what strikes me as waffling and
nit-picking, Myers acknowledges that Craig's account of the station wagon
leaving Dealey Plaza is credible, but he suggests Craig was lying or mistaken
in saying Oswald entered the vehicle. Yet, Craig, who was a decorated deputy
sheriff with an outstanding record, said he was certain the man he saw get into
the station wagon was Oswald. (If he wasn't Oswald, he was someone who bore a
marked resemblance to Oswald.)
In his attack on Craig's linkage of the
station wagon to Oswald, Myers fails to bring to the reader's attention the
fact that another witness said the man who got into the station wagon was the
spitting image of Oswald. As he so often does with data he doesn't like, Myers
buries this information in an endnote (pp. 634-635 n 604). The other witness
was Mrs. James Forrest. Mrs. Forrest said the man she saw get into the station
wagon so closely resembled Oswald that, "If it wasn't Oswald, it was his
identical twin." Why doesn't Myers mention this even once in his
discussion of Craig's account? I suspect he doesn't mention it because it would
tend to discredit his rejection of Craig's linkage of the station wagon to
Oswald, and because it might tip the reader to the possibility that someone was
impersonating Oswald. Myers never once mentions the possibility that Oswald was
being impersonated in Dallas by a look-alike before and after the assassination.
(Not only is there evidence Oswald was being impersonated in Dallas, there is
also evidence he was being impersonated in Mexico City. Ed Lopez, the staff
investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations who investigated
the Mexico City angle of the assassination, concluded an Oswald imposter
visited the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City as part of an
effort to frame Oswald.)
Myers doesn't dare acknowledge that Craig
saw Oswald get into the station wagon, because throughout his book Myers
accepts the Warren Commission's version of Oswald's movements after he left the
Book Depository. Therefore, Myers accepts the story that Oswald returned to his
house by riding in William Whaley's cab. If Craig's story is true, it can only
mean one of two things: either the cab-ride story is false or an Oswald
look-alike was seen leaving the Book Depository and getting into a waiting
station wagon fifteen minutes after the assassination. There is good evidence
that supports Craig's account, as Dr. Michael Kurtz explains:
The Warren Report
mentions that Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig claimed that about fifteen
minutes after the assassination, he saw Oswald run from the rear of the
Depository building, scamper down an incline to Elm Street, and enter a Rambler
station wagon driven by a dark complected man. According to the commission,
"Craig may have seen a person enter a white Rambler station wagon 15 or 20
minutes after the shooting . . . but the Commission has concluded that this man
was not Lee Harvey Oswald, because of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald was
far away from the building by that time."
What was that
"overwhelming evidence"? It should be mentioned that even if the
commission's version is accepted, Oswald was not "far away from the building by that time." According
to the commission, at 12:44 Oswald was getting off McWatters's bus only five
blocks east of the Depository building. He then walked for four minutes to the
Greyhound bus station only four blocks away. The "overwhelming
evidence" is the testimony of William Whaley [the cab driver]. Remember
that Whaley failed to select Oswald out of police lineup as his taxicab
passenger. He also testified that Oswald was wearing TWO jackets, while the
commission claimed that he wore none. In his taxi logbook, Whaley recorded the
time of his pickup at the bus station as 12:30, yet the commission said that
the real time was 12:48.
Let us now examine
Roger Craig's testimony in order to determine if it is consistent and accurate
and supported by other evidence. Deputy Craig watched the motorcade in front of
the Criminal Courts building on Houston Street. After hearing the shots, he
raced to the grassy knoll area. Photographs of the scene show Craig in the
large crowd of people converging on the knoll after the shooting. Craig then
returned to the south side of Elm Street. As he was standing there with a group
of law enforcement officials, he noticed a man run down the grassy embankment
to the right front of the Texas School Book Depository building. A light green
Rambler station wagon, driven by a heavy-set, dark-complected man, was
traveling west on Elm Street. As the running man reached the curb, the station
wagon stopped and the man entered. . . .
There is, in fact,
substantial evidence that provides far more corroboration for Craig's testimony
than for the totally unsubstantiated statements of Whaley. Carolyn Walther was
watching the motorcade from Houston Street. She saw a man standing on the
fourth or fifth floor in the southeast corner window of the Depository
building. He was holding a gun. Next to him was a man dressed in a brown sport
coat. Shortly after the assassination, James Worrell saw a man run out of the
back of the Depository. The man was five feet eight inches to five feet ten
inches tall, average weight, had dark hair, and was wearing a dark sports
jacket. The man was moving south on Houston Street.
Richard Randolph
Carr watched the motorcade from Houston and Commerce streets. Shortly before
the shooting, he saw a man wearing a brown sport coat in an upper floor of the
Book Depository building. A couple of minutes after the shooting, Carr saw the
same man walking very fast heading south on Houston Street. After going around
the block, the man entered a grey or green Rambler station wagon. Marvin
Robinson was driving his car west on Elm Street about fifteen minutes after the
shooting. He saw a man come down the grassy incline and enter a Rambler station
wagon, which then drove away.
Mrs. James Forrest
was standing in a group of people who had gathered on the incline near the
grassy knoll. As she was standing, she saw a man suddenly run from the rear of
the Depository building, down the incline, and then enter a Rambler station
wagon. The man she saw running down and entering the station wagon strongly
resembled Lee Harvey Oswald. "If it wasn't Oswald," Mrs. Forrest has
declared, "it was his identical twin." The testimony of Walther,
Worrell, Carr, Robinson, and Forrest all provide strong substantiation for Roger
Craig's story.
Craig's story is
also supported by photographic evidence. One photograph shows Deputy Craig
running toward the grassy knoll. Another shows him standing near the grassy
knoll. Another shows him standing on the south side of Elm Street looking
toward the Book Depository building. In the same photograph, a light-colored
Rambler station wagon can be seen heading west on Elm Street. In another
photograph, Craig is seen looking toward Elm Street in the general direction of
the station wagon. . . .
Despite the impressive
corroboration for Craig's testimony, the Warren Commission chose to reject it.
Instead, it accepted the unsubstantiated and contradictory testimony of taxi
driver William Whaley. There is no corroboration for Whaley's story. Whaley did
tell the commission that when Oswald entered his cab, an elderly lady tried to
enter it from the opposite side. Oswald volunteered to let her have the cab,
but the lady refused because another taxi was waiting just behind Whaley's.
There is no indication that the commission attempted to locate the other cab.
Both the driver and the lady could have supported Whaley's observations. By
studying the logbook of the other cab, it would be possible to attempt to trace
the lady. Neither the police nor the commission did so.
Whaley testified
that Oswald "had on two jackets." The commission decided there was
none. At the police lineup, Whaley picked out eighteen-year-old David Knapp
instead of twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald (Knapp did not even resemble
Oswald). Whaley registered 12:30 p.m. in his logbook as the time when his
passenger entered the cab. This, of course, eliminated Oswald, since Oswald was
in the Depository building at that time. The commission attempted to explain
this by noting that Whaley recorded all trips in fifteen-minute intervals,
regardless of how long the actual trip took. Since the commission decided
Oswald entered the cab at 12:47 or 12:48, it did not explain why Whaley entered
12:30 instead of 12:45 in his book. Nor did it explain why other trips were
entered at 6:20, 7:50, 8:10, 9:40, 10:50, and 3:10, rather than regular
quarter-hour intervals. In his original log, Whaley entered 500 North Beckley
as the spot where he let Oswald out. The commission decided that Whaley was
wrong here, also.
It should be
obvious to the disinterested observer that the Warren Commission was trying to
fabricate a case against Oswald as a lone assassin and murderer. There is not
one iota of evidence to substantiate Whaley's testimony about the cab ride.
Deputy Sheriff Craig's story is supported by the testimony of five other
witnesses as well as five photographs. (Crime
of the Century, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982, pp.
130-133, original emphasis).
Another reason lone-gunman theorists reject
Craig's account is that, if true, it could mean Oswald never boarded Cecil
McWatters' bus. Myers accepts the WC's claim that Oswald rode on McWatters' bus
and that he boarded it at 12:40 P.M., ten minutes after the assassination.
Myers mentions the report that McWatters' bus transfer and five bullets for the
pistol were found in Oswald's pockets (p. 349). Yes, they were supposedly
"found" in Oswald's pockets—two
hours after Oswald was arrested. So we're supposed to believe that Oswald,
whom Myers describes elsewhere as cool, cunning, and calculating (pp. 199, 208,
359, 363), was so stupid that he failed to dispose of the bus transfer and the
bullets after he allegedly shot Tippit, even though he had ample time to do so.
Though one would never know it from reading
Myers' discussion on Oswald's movements, the bus-ride story, like the cab-ride
account, is open to doubt. The bus transfer is of questionable evidentiary
value. As mentioned, it wasn't supposedly "found" on Oswald until
some two hours after he arrived at
the police station, and we have only the Dallas Police Department's word on its
discovery, which is hardly reassuring. For one thing, it seems a little hard to
believe the police waited two hours before searching Oswald. Didn't they search
him when they arrested him? And, again, why didn't the calm, cunning,
calculating Oswald have the brains to dispose of the transfer and the bullets
after he supposedly shot Tippit? On the one hand, lone-gunman theorists claim
Oswald disposed of his jacket after the Tippit shooting. Then why on earth
wouldn't he have disposed of the bus transfer and the bullets, not to mention
the revolver itself? If nothing else, one would think Oswald would have at
least tried to get rid of the revolver and the bullets once he saw the police
enter the theater. For that matter, in the two hours before the police
supposedly finally got around to searching him, Oswald could have asked to use
the bathroom and then, once inside the toilet stall, flushed the transfer and
bullets down the toilet.
Moreover, McWatters' WC testimony suggests
he gave the bus transfer to a young passenger named Roy Milton Jones, not to
Oswald. The day after he viewed the police lineup, McWatters recognized one of
his regular passengers, the teenager Jones, as the man who had boarded his bus
at 12:40. McWatters only gave out two transfers on that trip, one of them to a
woman. The WC asked McWatters if he could identify Oswald as the man who had
boarded his bus and to whom he had given a transfer. McWatters answered that he
could not make that identification (2 H 370). McWatters even denied telling the
Dallas police that the number two man in the lineup, i.e., Oswald, was the same
man who boarded his bus. Since McWatters said the man who boarded his bus at
12:40 and who asked for a transfer was Jones, not Oswald, and since McWatters
only gave out two transfers during that trip, the logical conclusion is that
one of the transfers was given to Jones and the other to the woman.
Did anyone see Oswald on McWatters' bus?
Myers cites three witnesses as seeing Oswald on the bus, a woman named Mary
Bledsoe, the abovementioned Roy Milton Jones, and, misleadingly enough,
McWatters (p. 281). Even the WC declined to cite McWatters as a witness to
place Oswald on the bus, saying McWatters' "recollection alone was too
vague to be a basis for placing Oswald on the bus," and the commission
admitted McWatters "said he had been in error [in identifying Oswald] and
that a teenager named Milton Jones was the passenger he had in mind" (Warren Commission Report, p. 159). The
Dallas police falsely listed McWatters as having positively identified Oswald
in the police lineup as the man who had boarded his bus at 12:40. As mentioned,
McWatters later said Jones was actually the person who had boarded the bus.
Myers doesn't mention any of this.
Myers matter-of-factly says Jones told the
FBI he believed he had seen Oswald on the bus. Says Myers,
Roy Milton Jones,
a passenger on McWatters' bus, told the FBI that the man he believed was Oswald
was wearing a "light blue jacket." (p. 281)
Myers is giving a misleading picture by
omitting relevant information. Even a casual reading of Jones' statement
reveals Jones was not at all sure the man was Oswald, that he didn't get a good
look at the man, and that it didn't even occur to him the man "might"
have been Oswald until McWatters--yes, McWatters-- suggested this to him. I
quote from the FBI report on the interview with Jones:
Jones stated he
did not observe this man closely since he [the man] sat behind him [Jones] in
the bus, but, on the following Monday when he caught the same bus going home
from school with the same driver [McWatters], the driver told him he thought
this man might have been Lee Harvey Oswald.
Jones said that
after the driver mentioned this, and from his recollection of Oswald's picture
as it appeared on television and in the newspapers, he thought it was possible
it could have been Oswald. He emphasized, however, that he did not have a good
view of this man at any time and could not positively identify him as being
identical with Lee Harvey Oswald. He said he was inclined to think it might
have been Oswald only because the bus driver told him so. (CE 2641, p. 2)
And, as mentioned, the bus driver,
McWatters, later insisted it was Jones, not Oswald, who boarded his bus at the
time in question.
Jones said the man in question was wearing a
light blue jacket. But, according to Myers, Oswald left his blue jacket at work
when he left the Depository after the assassination. Furthermore, Oswald's blue
jacket was not light blue.
The one and only witness who firmly put
Oswald on McWatters' bus was Mary Bledsoe. Her testimony is lacking in
credibility. Mrs. Bledsoe had been Oswald's landlady for a brief time before
the assassination. She made it clear in her testimony that she disliked Oswald.
Numerous authors have discussed the questionable nature of Mrs. Bledsoe's
story, and I would refer the reader to their critiques (see, for example,
Kurtz, Crime of the Century, p. 127;
Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact,
New York: Vintage Books, 1976 edition, pp. 76-82; and Harold Weisberg, Selections from Whitewash, New York:
Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994, pp. 110-112). I'll quote one brief section
from Harold Weisberg's analysis of Mrs. Bledsoe's testimony:
Most of Mrs.
Bledsoe's answers were: "I don't know." "I didn't pay any
attention." "I didn't care." "I didn't look." "I
didn't even look." "I couldn't tell you," and other such
"valuable" contributions. At one point, following one of her
nonresponsive answers, [WC attorney] Ball interrupted her to say: "But,
before you go into that, I notice you have been reading from some notes before
you." Her reply was: "Well, because I forget what I have to
say." (Selections from Whitewash,
p. 110)
It should be mentioned that both McWatters
and Jones said the man who boarded the bus at the time in question was wearing
a jacket. As mentioned, Jones said the jacket was light blue in color.
Interestingly, the cab driver initially said the man who rode in his cab during
the time in question was wearing a faded blue jacket. The WC said the man in
both instances was Oswald, but the commission also insisted Oswald wasn't
wearing a jacket after he left the Book Depository. The commission had to deny
the accounts of the light blue jacket because it claimed Oswald left his blue
jacket at work that day, where it was allegedly "found" weeks later, and because that jacket was
not light blue.
Deputy Sheriff Craig's account of seeing
Oswald get into a waiting station wagon is more credible than the bus-ride and
cab-ride stories that Myers and other lone-gunman theorists accept. It should
be added that Craig had won an award for outstanding performance as a law
enforcement officer and had an excellent record.
Several people reported seeing a man who
looked like Oswald at times and places when the real Oswald was known to be
elsewhere. It is possible that the real Oswald rode in Whaley's cab and on
McWatters' bus, and that Deputy Sheriff Craig saw an Oswald imposter. It is also possible, if not somewhat more
likely, that Oswald did not ride in the cab nor on the bus, and that Craig
either saw the real Oswald or an imposter—and if Craig saw an imposter, then
Oswald simply got home by other means.
Myers' Treatment of Oswald
Myers' portrait of Oswald (pp. 47-49,
345-364) is grossly biased and incomplete. Compare Myers' comments on Oswald's
character with those found in my section on Oswald in my online manuscript Hasty Judgment.
Myers matter-of-factly assumes Oswald
attempted to kill General Edwin Walker (p. 49), without mentioning any of the
problems with the case against Oswald in the Walker shooting.
Myers paraphrases Howard Brennan as saying
the sixth-floor gunman slowly withdrew the rifle from the window and then
paused a second as if to assure himself that he had hit his target (p. 41).
Myers should know that no other witness who saw a gunman or rifle in the window
saw the gunman pause in the window. Myers should also know Brennan said the
gunman was wearing a light-colored shirt, whereas Oswald wore a reddish-brown
shirt to work that day. (The four other witnesses who saw the sixth-floor
gunman likewise said he was wearing a light-colored shirt.) And Myers certainly
should know there are serious problems with other aspects of Brennan's story.
The Descriptions of Tippit's Assailant
and the Possibility of Two Assailants and/or An Accomplice
Myers stares straight at evidence that two
people might have been involved in Tippit's death, and/or that the killer
didn't resemble Oswald and was not Oswald, and/or that there was an accomplice,
but he apparently fails, or refuses, to recognize it as such. He dismisses all
of it as being the result of mistakes and faulty memories.
What is this evidence? For example, several
witnesses said the assailant was wearing a jacket that was darker than the
light-gray jacket that the WC claimed the killer was wearing. Yet, other
witnesses said the man was wearing a light-colored jacket. (For that matter,
the jacket was initially described as "white.") At least two
witnesses, and quite possibly three, said two men were involved in the Tippit
slaying, and one of them saw the gunman jump into a car that proceeded to speed
away from the scene. The police were searching for a car that was reportedly
connected to the Tippit shooting. There is a credible report that a second man
was arrested and removed from the Texas Theater.
An experienced policeman and a former combat
Marine both said an automatic pistol was used (as opposed to Oswald's
revolver). Moreover, the policeman, Sgt. Gerald Hill, based his
automatic-pistol identification on the shell casings. As any firearms expert
can attest, it's very easy to distinguish between automatic shells and revolver
shells. What's more, in a 1986 interview, Hill said he knew the shells were
.38-caliber shells because he picked one of them up and examined it. This is
significant because .38 automatic shells are marked ".38 AUTO" on the
bottom. Hill specifically said he looked on the bottom of the shell that he
examined. It is no wonder, then, that Hill got on the radio and said "the
shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic
.38."
In reading Myers' book, one finds good
documentation of the fact that two witnesses said the killer's hair was
"bushy" (pp. 117, 118, 487, 636). The problem is that Oswald's hair
certainly was not bushy, as any number of photos of him readily prove.
Buried in one of Myers' endnotes is the fact
that a key witness to the Tippit shooting, William Smith, initially said the
killer was not Oswald (p. 615 n 390).
An anonymous person informed the FBI that Smith had been at the Tippit scene,
that he'd seen the killer, and that Smith had said the man was "not Oswald."
Like some other witnesses, when Smith was questioned by the FBI, he changed his
tune and gave a story more in keeping with the lone-gunman scenario. Smith told
the FBI he initially didn't think the gunman was Oswald because when he first
saw Oswald on TV after the assassination it looked like Oswald had
light-colored hair. This strikes me as a dubious explanation for Smith's change
of story. I've watched much of the post-assassination TV footage of Oswald, and
I would invite anyone to find a clip from that footage in which Oswald seems to
have light-colored hair. (Of course, Smith might not have said this--we have
only the word of the FBI agent who interviewed him that he in fact gave this
explanation. Numerous witnesses complained that the FBI agents who interviewed
them misrepresented what they said or only mentioned selected parts of their
accounts. This is not to say that all FBI agents did this. Some FBI agents
apparently did not distort what witnesses told them.)
Furthermore, what about the killer's facial
features, and his height, weight, and so forth? Given the fact that Smith got a
good look at the killer, one would think he should have been able to base his
initial opinion on more than just the appearance of hair on a black-and-white
TV screen.
The Police Lineups
Incredibly, Myers opines that the infamous
police lineups at which Oswald was "identified" as Tippit's killer
were fair (pp. 229-230). Those lineups were grossly unfair. At one of the lineups,
while the other men were neatly dressed, Oswald had on a worn, stretched-out,
and torn T-shirt, not to mention the fact that he had a bruised and swollen
face. Oswald himself complained bitterly about the contrast between how he was
dressed and how the other men in the lineup were dressed, as Myers himself
admits in a comment buried in an endnote (pp. 637-638 n 645). Myers should have
mentioned Oswald's protest about the clothing disparity in his discussion on
the lineups, instead of burying this information in an endnote.
The unfairness of the police lineups has
already been documented by many authors (see, for example, Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, p. 257;
Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, pp.
146-147). For example, lineup participant Detective William Perry was wearing a
dress shirt and a sports coat (7 H 233), and presumably did not have a bruised
and swollen face as did Oswald. Similarly, lineup member Detective Richard
Clark was wearing a white dress shirt and a sports coat (7 H 236). Presumably,
Clark didn't have a bruised and swollen face, either. How can Myers label such
lineups as "fair"?
Myers suggests Oswald was not asked his name
and place of employment during any of the lineups (p. 228). But Detective
Richard Sims told the WC that Oswald was
asked his name at the second lineup:
Mr. BALL. How did
you conduct it?
Mr. SIMS. Well,
they are all under a number and I would have them---one, two, three, and four,
and No. 1 stand on that center black square there and give their names and age
and address and if they own a car, where they went to school, where they were
born, where they were raised. (7 H 170)
What about the first lineup? Detective Sims'
statement about the second lineup, along with the testimony from the other
lineup members, suggest Oswald was in fact asked his name and place of
employment at the first lineup as well (see, for example, 7 H 234, 237-239,
241-242). How could such lineups have been fair when by that time practically
the whole world knew Oswald was the prime suspect in the assassination?
Myers cites cabdriver William Scoggins'
"identification" of Oswald from one of those police lineups (p. 226).
Myers neglects to mention that Scoggins selected the wrong photo when asked to identify Oswald from photos after the
lineup (3 H 335). Law enforcement agents asked Scoggins to pick Oswald from
among various photos following the lineup. After Scoggins made his selection,
the agent showing him the pictures told him "the other one was
Oswald" (3 H 335). Myers mentions none of this.
The Rapid Departure from the Gloco Gas
Station and a Suspicious Phone Call
Myers labels as "a mystery" the
fact that Tippit sped off from the Gloco gas station at right around the same
time the housekeeper at Oswald's rooming house said Oswald left the house (pp.
55-56). Myers just can't seem to connect the dots. Is it just a coincidence
that Tippit sped off from the gas station at right around the same moment
Oswald reportedly left his residence?
Why was Tippit waiting at the Gloco gas
station to begin with? Perhaps to spot Oswald coming home. One of the witnesses
who saw Tippit at the gas station said he was sitting in his car watching
traffic coming from downtown Dallas over the Houston Street viaduct. The Gloco
gas station was located at the south end of the viaduct. A glance at a map of
Dallas reveals this is the street Oswald would have most likely taken to return
home from the downtown area. What a coincidence.
Tippit didn't answer the dispatcher's call
during this time period. Then, at about 1:06, just a few minutes after he
arrived at the gas station, Tippit suddenly sped off and headed south. Again,
this was right around the same time Oswald reportedly left his rooming house.
A short time later, according to two
witnesses, Tippit hurried into the Top Ten Record Shop on Jefferson Street,
asked customers to step aside as he made his way to the phone, dialed a number,
let it ring about seven or eight times, hung up, and then hastily left without
saying a word (p. 56). The two witnesses who reported this event were J. W.
Stark, the shop owner, and his clerk, Louis Cortinas. Cortinas thought Tippit's
actions were rather strange because Tippit had never tried to use the phone in
the shop before. The Top Ten Record Shop was only a mile from the location where
Tippit would be shot a few minutes after he left the store.
Myers waffles on whether or not the
phone-call incident event occurred. He says a document that surfaced in 1996
"raises questions" about the phone-call story, and he quotes two
Tippit associates as saying they didn't think Tippit would have gone into a
place of business to make a call (p. 56). But Myers allows the event may have
occurred, saying "if Tippit did stop to place a phone call, the reason is
unknown" (p. 57). Myers himself cites strong evidence that Stark and
Cortinas's story is credible. Myers notes the following:
* Cortinas knew Tippit.
* Cortinas and Stark gave similar accounts
of the incident, even though they hadn't seen each other in ten years.
* The timing of the incident is consistent
with Tippit's known movements.
* A document released in 1996 reports that
twelve days after the assassination a man named John Whitten told the FBI that
he'd heard Tippit had been in the record shop on the morning of the shooting.
Why would Stark and Cortinas have invented a
story about Tippit making a phone call in their shop? How would they have been
"mistaken" about this? There can be no credible doubt that Stark and
Cortinas's story is factual.
Clearly, something very strange was going on
here. Myers himself notes Tippit could have used the special police phones that
were installed at every fire station in Dallas. Reportedly Tippit wasn't in the
habit of using phones in businesses while on duty. Whom was Tippit trying to
call? Why was he in such a rush? Is it just a coincidence that only a few
minutes later he just happened to end up driving around in an area that was
less than a mile from Oswald's rooming house? Let's review the events and facts
under discussion and try to put them in the context of other puzzling facts:
* At 12:45 Tippit was supposedly ordered to
leave his assigned area by the police dispatcher. Of all the areas to which he
could have been sent, he was allegedly told to go to central Oak Cliff, the
same area where Oswald's rooming house was located.
* Of all the places he could have parked or
visited, Tippit chose the Gloco gas station at the south end of the Houston
Street viaduct, where he sat and watched traffic coming from the downtown area.
He was watching the very street Oswald would have been expected to use to
return home.
* During this same period of time, and just
after Oswald walked into his rooming house, a police car drove up to the house,
tapped its horn a couple times, waited briefly, and then drove off, according
to the housekeeper. The housekeeper indicated Oswald was inside the house for
only a few minutes before he departed.
* A few minutes after arriving at the gas
station, and at right around the same time Oswald reportedly left his rooming
house, Tippit suddenly and inexplicably sped off from the gas station.
* A few minutes later Tippit hurried into
the Top Ten Record Shop, dialed the phone, let it ring several times, hung up,
and then hastily departed without saying a word. Why didn't he use the police
phone at the local fire station? Why did he need to use the phone at all?
Supposedly Tippit was in central Oak Cliff to be on hand for a potential
"emergency." So what was he doing leaving his patrol car without
checking in with the dispatcher, in order to use a phone in a record shop?
* A mere matter of minutes after he rushed
out of the record shop, Tippit was shot dead on 10th and Patton.
What is especially intriguing about the
record shop incident is that the owner, Stark, also said that Oswald was waiting at the shop when
Stark arrived that morning. Stark said Oswald bought a ticket to a concert and
then left. Interestingly, the abovementioned 1996 document also reports John
Whitten told the FBI he'd heard that Oswald was in the Top Ten Record Shop twice on the morning of the
assassination. Myers deals with this by noting that Whitten said Tippit was in
the shop during Oswald's second visit, that Stark said Tippit was not in the
shop when Oswald was there, and that although Whitten's story places Tippit in
the record shop, "details about a frantic phone call are curiously
absent" (p. 57).
Myers notes the FBI dismissed the account of
Oswald's visit to the record shop "because Oswald is known to have been at
work all morning" (p. 57). Ok, then why isn't this same reasoning applied
to the money order that Oswald supposedly purchased in order to buy the alleged
murder weapon? Oswald's time sheet shows he was at work when the money order
was purchased. Furthermore, since Myers
dismisses the reports that suggest Oswald was being impersonated in
Mrs. Roberts and the Police Car that
Stopped in Front of Oswald's Rooming House
According to Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the
housekeeper at the rooming house where Oswald rented a room, a few minutes
before Tippit sped off from the gas station, and just after Oswald entered the house
at around 1:00, a Dallas police car pulled up to the house, tapped its horn a
couple times, waited a moment, and then casually drove off. Myers dismisses
Mrs. Roberts' account because supposedly she waited five whole days before
giving it, because her memory wasn't perfect (for example, she wasn't certain
about the police's car number), because the Dallas police said all their cars
were accounted for, and because the rooming house landlady and a pro-WC
journalist claimed Roberts liked to "spin tales" (pp. 52-55).
Myers cites Assistant District Attorney Bill
Alexander's negative assessment of Mrs. Roberts' credibility (p. 54). Myers
neglects to mention that Alexander was hardly an impartial witness and that he
certainly had his own credibility problems. Alexander later admitted to doing
some tale spinning of his own: He claimed he made up a story about Oswald
working for the FBI because he "never much liked the federals" and
because he wanted to see if the FBI was tapping Dallas police phones. Alexander
also denied that Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby, was in the Mafia, a claim that was
specious even when Alexander made it.
And what about the rooming house landlady,
Gladys Johnson, whom Myers cites to impugn Mrs. Roberts' veracity? Five months
after the fact, Mrs. Johnson claimed to the WC that Mrs. Roberts liked to tell
tales. Why hadn't Mrs. Johnson said anything about this earlier? Myers takes
note that Mrs. Roberts supposedly waited a whole five days before mentioning
the police car incident, but apparently he isn't bothered that Mrs. Johnson
waited five months before saying anything to anyone about Mrs. Roberts' alleged
story telling.
It's entirely possible that Mrs. Roberts
simply didn't see any importance in the visit of the police car. She probably
thought it was an unimportant, minor detail. She certainly can't be accused of
being a "conspiracy witness" who was trying to help Oswald, because
she accepted the case against Oswald without question.
It's also possible that Mrs. Roberts
mentioned the police car visit along with the rest of her story when she was
interviewed by the Dallas police, but that the police ignored it. After all,
one of the Dallas law enforcement officials who interviewed her was the
abovementioned Assistant DA Bill Alexander. The Dallas police would not have
wanted it known that one of their cars had stopped in front of Oswald's house
so soon after the shooting. Also, it should be kept in mind that several
witnesses complained the Dallas police ignored certain parts of their stories.
For example, Frank Wright, who saw Tippit's killer jump into a car and speed
off, said he tried to tell two or three policemen about this, "but they
didn't pay any attention" (Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998, p.
71).
Myers notes that pro-WC journalist Hugh
Aynesworth claimed Mrs. Roberts said nothing about the police car visit when he
interviewed her on the afternoon of the assassination. This is hardly a
compelling point. Aynesworth was a staunch WC supporter who proved time and
again he was not above bending the facts. When New Orleans District Attorney
Jim Garrison investigated the assassination a few years later and charged New
Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with involvement in the assassination plot,
Aynesworth made maliciously false charges against Garrison and ignored all
evidence against Shaw (Jim Garrison, On
the Trail of the Assassins, New York: Warner Books, 1988, pp. 187-188;
James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed: Jfk,
Cuba, and the Garrison Investigation, New York: Sheridan Square Press,
1992, pp. 159-165; and William Davy, Let
Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation, Reston:
Jordan Publishing, 1999, pp. 131-135). A 1969 article on the Garrison
investigation in the Columbia Journalism
Review identified Aynesworth as one of three journalists who had gone
"beyond the normal bounds of journalistic interest in the story." The
authors of the article even suggested Aynesworth, because of his obvious bias,
should have considered taking himself off the case as a journalist and simply
joined the Shaw defense team (see Davy, Let
Justice Be Done, pp. 134-135, citing Columbia
Journalism Review, Spring 1969, pp. 38-41). In later years it came to light
that Aynesworth acted as an informant on the JFK case for the FBI.
Myers accepts Mrs. Roberts' statements about
Oswald entering the house, about his hurried manner, about his wearing a
jacket, and about his zipping up the jacket as he exited the house, but he
rejects her report about the police car stopping in front of the house. I think
anyone who listens to the interview that Mrs. Roberts gave on radio station
KLIF a few hours after the assassination will conclude she sounded like a
sincere, down-to-earth person who was simply telling what she had seen and heard.
It's worth pointing out that the FBI
believed Mrs. Roberts' account of the police car visit. The FBI even opined the
car was there because the police had learned of Oswald's address and were
waiting to see if he came home.
The Fake Oswald Wallet and the Fake
Hidell ID Card
Myers refuses to admit that someone clearly
planted a fake "Oswald" wallet, complete with a fake Hidell ID card,
at the Tippit murder scene, even though former FBI Special Agent Robert Barrett
adamantly insists an Oswald wallet with both Oswald ID and fake Hidell ID was
found at the scene, and even though Barrett clearly recalls that he was asked
if he knew who Oswald or Hidell was by the policeman who was examining the
wallet. In addition, former FBI Special Agent James Hosty confirmed that
Barrett told him about the finding of an Oswald wallet at the Tippit scene, and
there is newsfilm footage of policemen examining a wallet right next to
Tippit's patrol car (pp. 287-303).
Myers says that although the wallet in the
newsfilm resembles Oswald's arrest wallet in a number of features,
"photographs show that the Oswald arrest wallet is not the same billfold" that's seen in the news footage (p.
298, original emphasis). Myers argues that the metal band on the arrest
wallet's leather flap is not quite the same as the band on the newsfilm
wallet's flap, and that the arrest wallet's leather flap is shaped slightly
differently than the leather flap of the wallet in the newsfilm. I dispute both
arguments.
The photos in question by no means clearly establish
either of these claims. It is hard to make out the exact length and shape of
the metal band on the flap of the newsfilm wallet. Allowing for a modest amount
of sun reflection and the somewhat grainy nature of the newsfilm, the news
footage wallet's metal band might very well be identical to the arrest wallet's
metal band. As for the argument about the length of the bands, Myers fails to
consider the fact that in the photo of the arrest wallet the flap is lying down
flat and is apparently snapped shut, whereas in the newsfilm the wallet's flap
is unsnapped and partially up. Also, the top left edge of the newsfilm wallet's
flap is somewhat obscured by a plastic photo sleeve beneath it, and it's hard
to determine the exact shape of the other edge of the flap because of the
grainy nature of the newsfilm, because of the camera angle, and because the
flap is up and not lying flat. The two flaps look to me like they could very
well be identical. For that matter, the wallets look identical in size and in all
their essential features.
However, even if the wallet in the newsfilm
footage isn't Oswald's arrest wallet, the fact remains that former Special
Agent Barrett insists an Oswald wallet with both Oswald ID and fake Hidell ID
was found at the scene, and that Barrett clearly recalls that he was asked if
he knew who Oswald or Hidell was by the policeman who was examining the wallet.
Nor does it change the fact that former Special Agent Hosty confirmed that
Barrett told him about the finding of an Oswald wallet at the Tippit scene. Nor
does it change the fact that there is newsfilm footage of policemen examining a
wallet right next to Tippit's patrol car. The Dallas police said they found
Oswald's "real" wallet on his person while they were driving him to
the police station. So the Oswald wallet that was found at the Tippit scene was
fake and was planted there in an effort to frame Oswald.
Why Tippit Was in Central Oak Cliff and
Not in His Assigned Area When He Allegedly "Stopped" Oswald
There is a severe problem with Myers'
explanation for Tippit's presence in central Oak Cliff. Tippit's assigned area
was miles from central Oak Cliff. Myers quotes dispatcher Murray Jackson's
story that he assigned Tippit to central Oak Cliff because "we were
draining the Oak Cliff area" and because he supposedly realized there
wouldn't be any policeman there if anything happened there (pp. 43-44). But,
this won't work: There was already a patrol car assigned there.
Tippit was gunned down in District 91.
Officer Mentzel was already assigned there. John Wassell says the police tape
for Channel 1 contains a transmission at about 12:33 in which Mentzel asks for
permission to take a break. Wassell says Mentzel was on a lunch break from
about 12:33 to 1:07. The dispatcher made no effort to contact Mentzel during
this period. Wassell further says the dispatcher acknowledged without comment a
check-in transmission from Mentzel at 1:07.
One could argue that technically District 91
was "uncovered" during this time. But in the aftermath of the
assassination Districts 88, 89, and 98 also appear to have been
"uncovered." Also, many patrol cars appear to have been covering two
districts. So why would central Oak Cliff have been singled out for such
special attention? Moreover, it should be kept in mind that just moments before
the belatedly discovered 12:45 instruction for Officers Tippit and Nelson to
move to central Oak Cliff, the dispatcher had radioed "all squads" to
proceed to Dealey Plaza:
Attention all
squads, report to downtown area code 3 to Elm and Houston, with caution. (CE
705, p. 8, 17 H 397)
In light of the these facts, it is very hard
to understand why central Oak Cliff would have been singled out for special
attention. Why would two out-of-area
patrol cars have been sent to central Oak Cliff when all squads had just been
ordered to go to Dealey Plaza (i.e., Elm and Houston), and when there was
already a patrol car assigned to that area? Is it sheer coincidence that Oswald
"just happened" to live in central Oak Cliff?
If nothing else, dispatcher Jackson would
have known that Mentzel would be back in his patrol car soon. There was no need
to send two additional patrol cars to central Oak Cliff.
Myers fails to explain why central Oak Cliff
would have been singled out for special attention. Why the need for three patrol cars in the one area where,
by cosmic coincidence, Oswald "just happened" to live, especially
given the fact that there had been no disturbance of the peace in that area
whatsoever, and that during this same time officers from the outermost areas
were being sent to the Book Depository?
Disturbingly, nowhere in his section on why
Tippit was in central Oak Cliff does Myers mention that Officer Mentzel was
already in District 91. Not one solitary word. Why not? Because that would cast
doubt on his explanation for Tippit's presence in central Oak Cliff?
Myers discusses a number of things that
policemen and others said were broadcast over the police radio but which are
not found on the existing police tapes. Interesting. This raises the
possibility that the tapes have been altered or faked. Critics have long
suspected that the 12:45 order sending Tippit and Nelson to central Oak Cliff
was dubbed onto the tape after the fact. No such order appeared in the first
Dallas police transcript of the police dispatch tapes, even though that
transcript was prepared with the instruction to note all transmissions that
related to the deaths of Tippit and Kennedy.
Former HSCA deputy chief counsel Gary
Cornwell points out that the police tapes in question might be copies (Real Answers, p. 113). So does Carl
Oglesby (The Jfk Assassination: The Facts
and the Theories, p. 251). Says Oglesby,
. . . there are
indications that other police dictabelts were tampered with (in connection with
Patrolman J. D. Tippit) and the NAS panel did not look into these. Third, the
chain of custody of this particular piece of evidence, this particular
dictabelt, leaves its authenticity open to challenge. One of the committee's
scientific experts said outright, though not for attribution, that the
discovery of the apparently simultaneous voice transmission from one minute
after the transmission means that this dictabelt could not be the original. (The JFK Assassination, p. 251)
Dr. Paul Hoch wrote to Dr. James Barger, one
of the HSCA's acoustical scientists, and suggested the dictabelt recording may
have been altered. Hoch was skeptical of certain parts of the recording
relating to Tippit's presence in Oak Cliff, such as the transmission telling
Tippit to be on hand for any "emergency." Hoch discussed this in a
1986 review of Henry Hurt's book Reasonable
Doubt:
I suggested that
both the tone and wording of two key messages [that supposedly explain why
Tippit was in Oak Cliff] were in the "formal mode" which one would
expect only in important messages -- or in a later re-creation. "You are
in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?" seemed significantly more formal than
"What's your location?", "Are you en route to Parkland,
601?", and similar inquiries recorded that day; it resembles "You do
not have the suspect. Is that correct?", where the "formal mode"
is expected. Similarly, "You will be at large for any emergency that comes
in" contrasts with "Remain in downtown area, available for call"
and "Stand by there until we notify you."
This kind of
analysis has been of evidentiary value in at least one other case, involving a
tape (released by Larry Flynt) purportedly of a conversation between John De
Lorean and FBI informant James Hoffman. Jack Anderson reported that
psycholinguist Murray Miron was able to establish that the tape had been faked.
(24 May 84, SFC, #1986.2) In addition to the anomalously unresponsive content
of "Hoffman's" remarks, his "speech cadences... `are consistent
with those to be expected from one who has rehearsed or is reading from a
script.'" Anderson described Miron as a "longtime FBI
consultant." The Justice Department should certainly sponsor that kind of
analysis of the Tippit messages. . . . (Echoes
of Conspiracy, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 28, 1986)
Dr. Hoch sent his analysis to Professor
Miron, in light of Miron's work on the Flynt tape. Several months later, Dr.
Hoch wrote the following:
One reason for
questioning the authenticity of the DPD Dictabelt is the presence of certain
messages relating to Officer Tippit. Basically, the following exchanges are
suspect because of their content, the formal tone of transmissions 590 and 592,
and the apparent absence of the expected reaction. The message numbers and the
transcriptions are from the Kimbrough transcript.
389. [Disp.] 87,
78, move into central Oak Cliff Area.
390. [78 (Tippit)]
78, I'm about Kiest and Bonnie View.
391. [87 (Nelson)]
87's going north on Marsalis on R. L. Thornton.
392. [Disp.]
10-4....
588-589 [Disp.]
78. [78] 78.
590. [Disp.] You
are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?
591. [78]
Lancaster and Eighth.
592. [Disp.] You
will be at large for any emergency that comes in.
583. [78] 10-4.
I sent my analysis
to Prof. Murray Miron, a psycholinguist whose work on another case was
described in Echoes of Conspiracy,
Vol. 8, No. 1, February 28, 1986. The following is from a letter I sent to the
Justice Department on September 16, 1986, describing his independent analysis,
which provided some support for my own work:
"Prof. Miron
. . . has not yet prepared a formal report, but he has provided me with the
following conclusions: 'Our preliminary findings... suggest that the
communications directed to Officer Tippit are anomalously at variance with the
other transmissions of the tape record.... The transmissions to Tippit are
quite stilted. They have the appearance of transmissions made more for an
audience's benefit than those for which the intent is to convey instructions.
The query regarding Tippit's current position is rhetorical rather than questioning.'"
"Prof. Miron
emphasized to me that his analysis does not preclude a quite innocent
explanation for the anomaly. The messages could have been added to the
recording after the fact, or they might have been made in 'real time' but sound
anomalous because the persons involved knew that something unusual was going
on."
"For example,
if Tippit was taking time to attend to personal business (as suggested by Mr.
Hurt's book), a dispatcher might have covered for him by assigning him to the
Oak Cliff area, with his voice betraying his knowledge that the assignment was
not routine but somehow designed to keep Tippit out of trouble. (This is
clearly speculation, of course.)"
"Even
alteration of the recording after Tippit's death could have been motivated by
nothing worse than a desire to protect his reputation." (Echoes of Conspiracy, Vol. 8, No. 3,
October 31, 1986)
When Was Tippit Killed?
The foundation of Myers' argument regarding
when the Tippit shooting occurred is his "stop-watch analysis" of the
police tapes. Although the DPD and FBI transcripts have Bowley calling the
dispatcher at about 1:16, and even though Bowley said it was 1:10 when he first
arrived to the scene, Myers says his stop-watch review of the tapes shows
Bowley didn't make the call until 1:17:41 (p. 92). If Bowley didn't call the
police dispatcher till 1:17:41, why did the Sheriff's Department dispatcher
apparently begin to respond to the shooting at 1:16, as the Sheriff's Office
tape transcript seems to show (17 H 372)?
Almost immediately after the 1:16 time
notation, the Sheriff's dispatcher tells all units to stay off the radio unless
they have important traffic. Then, the dispatcher tries to contact any squads
in the area of "Jefferson and East 10th, 510 East Jefferson and 10th."
This is significant because this address is a combination of the address that
Bowley and dispatcher Hulse gave over the police radio. A deputy sheriff
responds, and the dispatcher tells him to remain in the area and to be on the
watch for emergency vehicles.
As mentioned, questions have been raised
about the authenticity of the police tapes. Myers never explains why it took
the
. . . the first
transcript was prepared by the Dallas police and was supposed to highlight
communications pertaining to the murders of Officer Tippit and President
Kennedy, excluding other police matters. The Warren Commission staff studied
the transcript futilely in an attempt to find some radio dispatch that could
explain why Tippit had moved from his assigned district into the area where he
was killed. Nothing could be found. The puzzle persisted.
The Warren
Commission continued to struggle with the question throughout the sprint. It
heard testimony from three supervisors from the Dallas Police Department who
tried to explain why Tippit was in the wrong place. The reasons were purely
speculative, vaguely suggesting the demonstrably absurd possibility that Tippit
was heading for Dealey Plaza four miles away to be of assistance there. During
this testimony, there was never any reference to the possibility that Tippit
might have been ordered to go to central Oak Cliff by the police radio
dispatcher. And, of course, the three supervisors were quite aware of the
intense effort being made to find an answer to this riddle. (Reasonable Doubt, p. 160)
Anyway, four
months after the assassination, the
Not only was such
an inexplicable instruction believed to be unique in the Dallas Police
Department, it also had not been in the first transcript. Moreover, none of the
police supervisors who testified earlier indicated that they knew anything
about it. . . .
From the
beginning, there were peculiarities that surrounded not only the fortuitous
emergence of the evidence but also the specific radio dispatch. As critic
Meagher points out, the dispatch was made at the very height of the bedlam that
engulfed the Dallas Police Department during the minutes following the
assassination. No event in the city's history had created such frenzy. Not only
was the police switchboard jammed, but police officers had difficulty getting
through with crucially important radio messages concerning the state of
emergency in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Yet, there was
time, at the height of this turbulence, for the dispatcher to order Tippit and
one other officer--who, if he heard the order, did not obey it--to move into
central Oak Cliff, where at that time there was not a single significant crime
that needed police attention. (Reasonable
Doubt, pp. 160-161)
There is considerable evidence Tippit was
shot several minutes earlier than Myers can allow. Myers sidesteps most of this
evidence. For example, Myers fails to mention that Mrs. Markham felt certain
Tippit was shot at around 1:06 or 1:07. Bowley's watch-checked time of 1:10 for
his arrival matches perfectly with Markham's time of 1:06-1:07 for the shooting
and with Benavides' account that he waited a few minutes before he approached
the patrol car. It also corresponds with other eyewitness estimates of when the
shooting occurred.
Perhaps Myers didn't think he could afford
to mention Mrs. Markham's comments about when the shooting occurred because he
had already noted that Markham was en route to her regular 1:12-1:15 bus when
she witnessed the Tippit slaying. There are several other facts that support
Mrs. Markham's statements about the time of the shooting.
Mrs. Markham she said she left her apartment
building at 1:04, that it would have taken her about 2 minutes to walk from her
apartment building to the Tippit scene, that she walked to her bus stop every day, and that she had a routine of
leaving at 1:00 to catch her bus. Myers would have us believe that Markham
erred substantially, by 7 minutes, in her recollection of when she left her
apartment building, even though she noted that as she was leaving she glanced
at the clock in the laundry room of her apartment building and that the clock
read 1:04.
Mrs. Markham's time of 1:06 or 1:07 for the
shooting is consistent with her testimony that she left the apartment building
at 1:04; it's consistent with how long it would have taken her to walk from her
apartment to where she was when Tippit was shot (right around 2 minutes); and
it's consistent with her testimony that the laundry room clock read 1:04 when
she departed for her bus stop. But Myers
simply can’t afford to accept Mrs. Markham’s time because it destroys his
version of the shooting.
Bowley's radio call to the dispatcher
deserves further consideration. As mentioned, Bowley reported his watch read
1:10 when he drove up to the crime scene. Bowley then walked up to the car,
took the radio mike from Domingo Benavides, and contacted the police dispatcher
at 1:16 or 1:17. Note that this was after
Benavides heard gunfire, ducked into his truck and waited there "for a few minutes" (out of fear the
killer would return), got out of his truck, attempted to help Tippit, climbed
into the squad car, and then fumbled with the radio as he tried to figure out
how it worked. It was at this point that Bowley appeared inside the car, took
the radio from Benavides, and contacted the dispatcher.
The standard lone-gunman explanation is that
Benavides waited in his truck only for a matter of seconds and not for a few
minutes. But this seems to fly in the face of common sense, not to mention that
it ignores what Benavides himself initially said, which was that he waited in
his truck for "a few minutes." If you were only 25-50 feet away from
a shooting and feared you could be the next target, how long would you wait
until coming out into the open again? Understandably, and by all accounts,
Benavides was scared to death by the shooting. He told the WC he waited in his
truck "a few minutes" after he heard the shots. According to fellow
witness Ted Calloway, Benavides told him the day after the shooting that,
When I heard that
shooting, I fell down into the floorboard of my truck and I stayed there. It scared me to death. (p. 220, emphasis added)
Years later Benavides changed his story and
told CBS he only waited a few seconds, not a few minutes. Predictably, Myers
chooses to accept Benavides' belated change of story (pp. 86-87).
If, as seems likely, Benavides did in fact
wait in his truck a few minutes after the shots rang out, then the case against
Oswald collapses, unless one is willing to assume some unknown person gave
Oswald a ride to the Tippit crime scene. Myers is willing to speculate that
this might have happened, suggesting that a person who gave Oswald a ride would
not have come forward to tell about it because he would have been too
embarrassed (p. 352).
The problem of getting Oswald to the Tippit
crime scene in time to commit the crime has always vexed the lone-gunman
theory. Oswald's rooming house was nearly a mile from the spot on 10th and
Patton where Tippit was shot, right around nine-tenths of a mile. Even walking
at a brisk pace, it would have taken a minimum of 11-12 minutes to reach the
Tippit scene, and bear in mind this isn't allowing time for Tippit's killer to
walk a block and a half past 10th and Patton and then supposedly spin around
upon seeing the police car approach. Mrs. Roberts said that when she looked out
the window a short time after Oswald walked out the door, she saw him standing near the street. This was a few
minutes after 1:00, around 1:03 or 1:04.
Myers says the shooting occurred at 1:14:30.
A brisk pace would have put Oswald at the Tippit scene at right around 1:14,
which wouldn't have left enough time for him to walk past 10th and Patton, spin
around, start walking the other way, get stopped by Tippit, have a
"friendly chat" with Tippit, wait while Tippit got out of the car,
and then shoot Tippit. And note that this whole scenario assumes Oswald
suddenly started sprint-walking toward the Tippit scene right after Mrs. Roberts
saw him standing near the road in
front of the rooming house. (It also assumes that Benavides waited only a few
seconds before coming out from hiding and approaching the car.)
Lone-gunman scenarios of Oswald's movements
strain mightily just to get Oswald to the rooming house by 1:00. They assume he
rode on McWatters' bus and that he rode in Whaley's cab. They assume Whaley
made the trip in under 6 minutes, even though Whaley said it took 9 minutes in
the repeated reenactments that he did with the Dallas police--and the time of 9
minutes was when he "hit the lights right" (2 H 259). The time of 9
minutes was unacceptable (it was far too long), so Whaley was made to do yet
another reenactment, this time with the Secret Service, and this time using a shorter route than the one Whaley
described in his initial testimony in March 1964. It was this
"simulation" that served as the basis for the commission's claim that
the cab ride took no more than 6 minutes. An All-American Television team
conducted a reenactment of Whaley's trip for the 1992 documentary The JFK Conspiracy. Hitting few if any
red lights and with virtually no traffic, it took the team over 8 minutes to
make the trip. Myers doesn't even address the problem of the widely varying
times for Whaley's cab journey, not to mention the fact that it's by no means
certain Oswald was Whaley's passenger.
The "Wrong" Fingerprints: More
Evidence that Oswald Did Not Shoot Tippit
Myers admits the fingerprints on the front
passenger door and on the right front fender of Tippit's patrol car were from
one person, and that those prints are not
Oswald's. One would think this would be evidence of Oswald's innocence. But
Myers opines the fingerprints were made by a bystander and that the assailant
didn't touch the car (pp. 274-278). The evidence suggests otherwise. The
evidence indicates the assailant did in fact touch the passenger door. Mrs.
Markham apparently said this to the police at the scene, and even demonstrated
this to them, as we see in the WFAA footage. And, another witness reported the
gunman put his hands on the front passenger door.
Furthermore, why would a bystander have
touched the front passenger door and
the right front fender? No witness reported touching the front passenger door
or the right front fender, nor did any bystander report seeing another
bystander do so. Additionally, the location of the passenger-door prints is
significant: They were located just beneath the door's small vent window, and
it was through this same window that the killer apparently spoke with Tippit,
as Myers himself points out (p. 67). The vent window, moreover, was found open
when police arrived to the scene. So the most logical conclusion is that the
killer made the fingerprints that were found beneath the vent window as he spoke
with Tippit through that window.
Eyewitness Jimmy Burt said the killer put
his hands on the front passenger door. In the WFAA footage taken at the Tippit
crime scene following the slaying, we see the following, according to Myers'
own description of this footage: Eyewitness Helen Markham and DPD Captain W. R.
Westbrook are standing near the passenger door of Tippit's car. Mrs. Markham
appears to be showing Westbrook how the killer approached the car. Her arms
move out in front of her in a gesture suggesting how the killer leaned on the
car. Captain Westbrook leans down and looks at the area of the car near beneath
the passenger side window. Westbrook jerks his head up and spots crime lab
investigator Pete Barnes across the car and speaks to him. Barnes nods his head
and starts off to apparently retrieve a fingerprint kit. Barnes was later
photographed dusting the area Westbrook had indicated for prints!
Moreover, in this same footage we see
Detective Paul Bentley, Sergeant Bud Owens, and Captain George Doughty
investigating what apparently are fingerprints on the right front quarter panel
of Tippit's car. This area was also dusted for fingerprints!
Incidentally, Myers does not say a word
about either episode in his discussion on the fingerprints. He discusses these
episodes in another part of the book, on p. 292, one chapter and 14 pages after
he theorizes the prints were made by a bystander. It would have been nice if
Myers had brought these filmed episodes to the reader's attention in his
section on the fingerprints. But, of course, this would have tended to
discredit his theory that the prints were made by a bystander.
Problems with the Ballistics Evidence
Myers admits the slugs from Tippit's body
don't match the missile shells in evidence. To explain this, Myers posits a
fifth shot (pp. 269-271). Yet, there's no physical evidence of such a shot, and
only four shells were found on the day of the shooting.
Myers seeks to explain the fact that none of
the shells in evidence has Sergeant W. E. Barnes' or Patrolman J. M. Poe's
initials on it, even though both men said they marked two of the shells (pp.
260-265). Myers quotes two former DPD officers as saying marking evidence was
not viewed as vital at the time (which I seriously doubt). However, Sergeant
Gerald Hill testified he told Poe to be "sure" to mark two of the shells. If the
Myers quotes a former DPD detective as
saying, decades after the fact, that Poe told him he really didn't mark the
shells. However, Poe adamantly maintained in his Secret Service and FBI
statements, and in his interview with Henry Hurt, that he marked the shells. He
was certain he had marked the shells. Even in his WC testimony he indicated he
believed he had marked them. Of course, the absence of Poe's initials on the
extant shells suggests those shells are not the same shells that were found at
the crime scene on the day of the shooting. But Myers can have none of this.
So, he must argue that Poe somehow, for some reason, "failed" to mark
any of the shells, even though Sgt. Hill had told him to be "sure" to
mark two of the shells, and even though Poe initially said he was certain he
had marked them.
Speaking of Sgt. Hill, it's worth repeating
that Hill, an experienced policeman, initially said an automatic pistol was
used in the shooting (as opposed to Oswald's revolver). Hill based his
identification on the shell casings. As noted earlier, any firearms expert can
attest that it's very easy to distinguish between automatic shells and revolver
shells. In a 1986 interview, Hill said he knew the shells were .38-caliber
shells because he picked one of them up and examined it. This is significant
because .38 automatic shells are marked ".38 AUTO" on the bottom.
Hill specifically said he looked on the bottom of the shell that he examined.
It is no wonder, then, that Hill got on the radio and said "the shells at the
scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38."
In conclusion, Myers' book is hardly the
definitive, case-closing book it has been touted to be. It is loaded with
omissions, errors, and doubtful arguments.
----------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael
T. Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic Distance
University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History from
American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from
Excelsior College, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the
Community College of the Air Force. He
also holds an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of
Civil War Studies from