Part 3: The Manipulation of Oswald
During his short adult life, Lee Oswald was a man who was always following orders.
On his 17th birthday, when Oswald enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, the young Texan signed himself up for a lifetime of taking orders. Through Marine boot camp and while in training in Biloxi as a radar operator, Oswald took orders. This continued through his stint as a radar operator at the Atsugi, Japan air base, from which the CIA flew its U2 spy planes. While in Japan, Oswald also helped to infiltrate the Japanese Communist Party. He was treated for gonorrhea contracted, according to records, “in the line of duty” as a result.
While in the Marines, Oswald was following orders when he studied Russian and sat for Russian proficiency exams. When ready for his first big intelligence assignment, Oswald took a hardship discharge — ostensibly to take care of his mother in Fort Worth, TX — but left almost immediately for Europe to participate in the United States’ fake defector program. The Soviets never bought Oswald’s defector act. The KGB had Lee shipped him off to toil in a radio factory in Minsk where he could be kept under close surveillance, do little harm, and be used for propaganda purposes.
In Minsk, Oswald met a young woman, married, had a child, and eventually applied to return to the United States. The U.S. State Department granted Oswald a loan so he could be repatriated and return to the Dallas-Fort Worth area with his new Russian bride and their child. Oswald would quickly repay this loan although he officially only ever worked at low-paying jobs, and never for very long. Was Oswald receiving cash from an off-the-books employer?
During the first half of 1963, Oswald likely received new instructions to return to New Orleans, his original hometown and birthplace. There, Oswald took a cover job as an oiler greasing coffee machines. Most of the ex-Marine’s time in the Big Easy, however, was spent working under the auspices of ex-Chicago FBI agent and former Assistant Superintendent of the NOPD, Guy Banister. Oswald also collaborated with Banister’s associate David Ferrie, an ex-commercial airlines pilot and Oswald’s former commander in the Civil Air Patrol. While Banister and Ferrie were apparently running a training camp at Lake Pontchartrain for anti-Castro Cuban guerillas, Banister set up Oswald as the secretary and only member of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As an “agent provocateur” assigned to ferret out Castro sympathizers, Oswald handed out Fair Play for Cuba Committee flyers on the streets of downtown New Orleans.
To increase Oswald’s visibility and public reach, in all probability, a fake street fight was staged in early August with “pro-Castro” Oswald and some of Banister’s anti-Castro protégés. This got Oswald arrested for disturbing the peace, but also got him on the evening news. While in NOPD custody, Oswald asked to speak with an FBI agent. An FBI agent did arrive and conversed with Oswald in private for about an hour. Afterwards, at a public hearing, Oswald was fined $10 and released.
A few days later, Oswald was asked to debate Cuban exile Carlos Bringuier, who had knocked Oswald’s leaflets to the ground during their filmed confrontation; along with Ed Butler, executive director of the anti-Castro group Information Council of the Americas (INCA). The debate took place on the WDSU radio show Latin Listening Post. During the discussion, Butler asked Oswald to admit it was true he had defected to the Soviet Union and denounced his U.S. citizenship. Oswald disagreed, explaining he was simply a foreigner who for a time was granted the okay to live and work in the Soviet Union — an unlikely occurrence during the Cold War.
“I was at all times considered an American citizen, and at all times I was in contact with the American embassy,” Oswald explained. “The very fact that I am back in the United States shows that I did not renounce my citizenship. A person who renounces his citizenship becomes legally disqualified from returning to the United States.”
The repatriation loan from the State Department backs up Oswald’s claim.
As the summer of 1963 ended, Oswald was instructed to return to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and take another “killing time’ job — this time as an order filler at the Texas School Book Depository adjacent to Dealey Plaza. He also rented a cheap room at an Oak Cliff boarding house while his expectant wife Marina, and daughter, June, stayed with Ruth and Michael Paine in Fort Worth. Lee took the room, a short bus ride from work, under the assumed name O.H. Lee.
Oswald had been willing to spy on and infiltrate Japanese Communists, Soviet Communists, American Communists, and pro-Castro types. He was probably not averse to ongoing plans for the assassination of Fidel Castro.
On November 2, 1963 — less than three weeks before the assassination in Dallas, President Kennedy was supposed to attend a football game at Chicago’s Soldier Field between Army and Air Force. The plan was for the President’s plane to touch down in the Windy City and for him to drive in an open motorcade to the stadium.
However, three days before the President’s planned landing, the Washington, D.C. FBI received a note warning that an assassination team was arriving to shoot the President on his way to the game. The threat became even more real when a landlady reported to authorities that she had seen automatic rifles lying on the beds of a room rented by four men from out of town (supposedly Cubans) — as well as a map of the President’s route from the airport.
Upon being alerted by the FBI, Secret Service personnel on duty in Chicago went into action and tracked down two of the men — who were subsequently interrogated concerning their activities. The detainees protested their innocence, and agents couldn’t connect them to any developing plot. They were released.
Then, to make an already bad situation worse, authorities received word of a credible threat against the President made by a man at a Chicago area diner. The person making that threat was Thomas Arthur Vallee, an ex-Marine and member of the John Birch Society, Vallee boasted he had the weapons and ammo to do the job.
The ex-Marine was put under surveillance, then arrested the morning of JFK’s scheduled visit, which was cancelled. Inside Vallee’s car authorities found a small arsenal of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Valle, it was discovered, worked in an office building that overlooked Kennedy’s planned route.
The similarities between Oswald and Vallee were startling…too close to have been mere coincidence. Vallee would perhaps have made an even more convincing patsy, something akin to a Lee Oswald on steroids. Vallee was more outspoken, more violent, more erratic, and boasted a vastly superior arsenal of weaponry.
Oswald and Vallee shared a lengthy list of items in common, including these:
- were ex-Marines
- had been assigned to U-2 spy plane bases in Japan
- pledged themselves to extremist, radical causes
- suffered from a history of emotional meltdowns
- worked in buildings that overlooked the Presidential motorcade routes
- associated with far-right, anti-Castro Cuban exiles
- helped train anti-Castro Cubans for an armed invasion of their homeland
- were openly critical of how the United States treated its citizens
- were suspected of having ties to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Even more startling, author Edwin Black who first exposed the Chicago Plot, would later reveal a show-stopping piece of intelligence. According to Black’s sources, the original tip forwarded to the FBI about the Chicago Plot had come from a man known only as Lee. Could that have been Lee Harvey Oswald, recently hired order-filler at the Texas School Book Depository? Or perhaps Mr. O.H. Lee, a boarder at Gladys Johnson’s Oak Cliff boarding house on North Beckley.
Several days after Vallee’s arrest, a police informant sat in a Miami hotel room, wearing a wire to secretly record the following conversation with a wealthy political extremist named Joseph Milteer:
From an office building with a high-powered rifle. They will pick up somebody within hours afterwards…Just to throw the public off.
Sometime just after noon on Friday, November 23rd, Lee Oswald sat in the second-floor lunchroom of the TSBD. Perhaps thinking he had helped save the president in Chicago. Within a few minutes, Lee could hear the noise from the crowds grow louder as the motorcade approached and turned onto Elm Street. A few moments later the fatal shots rang out, then all hell broke loose. According to the official story, a figure appeared in the doorway and barged in to the second floor lunchroom. A motorcycle cop pointed his gun at Lee’s belly and ordered him to come forward. But Mr. Truly came in right after and told the cop, “No, he’s okay. He works here.” The men continued on their way, racing up the stairs. Oswald got his jacket, walked out the front of the TSBD through the glass doors, and headed east on foot
Again, according to the official story, Oswald hopped on the first Oak Cliff bus he could hail…it was for the Marsalis Avenue route. However, as bus 1213 crept back towards Dealey Plaza, traffic became horribly snarled. Another passenger, frustrated at the lack of forward progress, stepped forward to ask the driver for a transfer. Oswald also got up and asked for a transfer, then departed the bus. The Warren Report tells us he walked south for a few blocks to the taxi stand near the Greyhound bus terminal. Lee directed the cab driver to take him to North Beckley in Oak Cliff, the street on which his rooming house was located.
One of the most mysterious people in the entire JFK saga was a Dallas cop named Harry Olsen. Olsen’s girlfriend and future wife was one of Jack Ruby’s strippers. On the night of the assassination, Olsen later admitted he had spent a couple of hours in Jack Ruby’s automobile with the volatile nightclub owner as well as Olsen’s girlfriend, stage named Kathy Kay. Olsen used the time to work Jack, aka Sparky, into a frenzy; repeatedly telling the Carousel Club “host” that somebody needed to get that SOB Oswald. It would be Ruby who would draw the short straw that weekend to do the deed.
What Harry Olsen would not admit is exactly what he was doing during the time JFK and Tippit were shot. Olsen claimed he was off duty, nursing a broken leg that sported a cast, and earning some extra cash by doing a favor for the lawyer friend of another cop. Olsen said he was alone most of November 22nd guarding an “estate” that belonged to a deceased client of the lawyer. The property was located somewhere on 8th Avenue in Oak Cliff, just a couple blocks north of 10th Street where Tippit was gunned down. When pressed, Olsen could not remember the name of the cop who gave him the referral, could not remember the lawyer’s name, could not remember the dead property owner’s name, and could not remember the address of the property. He did remember someone phoned the dead owner to tell her JFK was just shot. Upon learning this news, Olsen said he walked a few blocks away to the apartment of his stripper girlfriend to watch the television coverage. We can venture a guess that Olsen also forgot his leg was supposed to be in a cast. Some weeks after the assassination, Chief Jesse Curry called Olsen into his office to inform the veteran cop he was being fired. When questioned later, Olsen couldn’t remember the reason why. Olsen’s testimony before the Warren Commission was frankly unbelievable and, at times, farcical. It was so suspicious it has led many JFK researchers to believe Olsen was either the cop who Lee’s housekeeper said tooted his horn outside Oswald’s rooming house, or one of the cops in the mystery car seen in the alleyway behind 10th Street when Tippit was murdered.
Olsen would eventually marry the stripper, move to California, and drop out of sight. But before he did, Olsen was interviewed by Dallas researcher Michael Brownlow. Brownlow asked Olsen many questions, most of which he deftly avoided answering. But at one point, Olsen shook his head and said, “Listen, Big Mike. You need to understand something. A lot of people were following orders that day. Oswald was following orders…”
Another person who was likely following orders on November 22nd was 11-year Dallas police veteran J.D. Tippit. Tippit was sitting in his squad car #10 at Oak Cliff’s Gloco filling station at approximately 11:45 p.m., watching traffic as it came off the Houston Street viaduct from Dealey Plaza and downtown Dallas. Tippit, however, had just reported to his dispatcher he was several miles south at Keist and Bonnie View in his regularly assigned Cedarcrest patrol area. The dispatcher soon called back and ordered Tippit north to central Oak Cliff, since all units close to downtown were being directed to head to Dealey Plaza.
Tippit was likely waiting for a city bus to come off the viaduct. He would follow that bus until an individual named Lee Oswald could get off alone at one of the early stops. Was Tippit’s assignment to pick up Oswald and drop him off at the Texas Theater? Tippit had met Oswald previously at Austin’s Barbeque joint down in his regular patrol area.
The patrolman could see no busses coming. Gloco employees watched as Tippit’s car suddenly pulled out and headed south on Lancaster Avenue at a high rate of speed. At 12:54 p.m. the dispatcher again calls Tippit, who now reports his position — correctly — as Lancaster and Eighth. Despite being thrown a curve ball, Tippit cruises the neighborhood for several minutes, he parks his patrol car facing north next to the Top 10 Records store — barely a block from the theater. Tippit hurries inside and asks to use the store phone. Store employees see Tippit dial a number, listen, but he never speaks. After what must have been six or seven rings, Tippit hangs up and quickly goes back outside to his patrol car.
Meanwhile, Oswald has paid his entrance fee and is seen by manager Butch Burroughs, who later recalled how Oswald slipped in between “1:00 and 1:07.” Patron Jack Davis watches curiously as Oswald keeps changing seats, sitting next to one person after the other in the mostly empty movie house. Davis corroborated Burroughs’ timeline as to when Oswald was in the theater. Davis described how Oswald had sat next to him, did not say a word, then got up after a few minutes to sit elsewhere. Oswald reportedly even sat next to an obviously pregnant woman — who soon got up, left, and never returned. In retrospect, Davis thought Oswald had been looking for someone — someone he didn’t personally know.
After several futile minutes of searching, Oswald went to the lobby and purchased popcorn from Butch Burroughs — approaching the time when Officer Tippit would be killed blocks away.
When Oswald’s wallet was emptied later that day, authorities would curiously discover the torn halves of two one-dollar bills. Both items later disappeared, but they were noted within the inventory paperwork concerning the suspect’s possessions. Many observers, including JFK researcher John Armstrong, have pointed out that the matching of torn half dollar bills is a tool used in spy craft for clandestine meetings.
Over next to the Top 10 Records store, Officer Tippit sat in his patrol car listening to police radio traffic regarding the flurry of activity at Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository.
Suddenly, Tippit’s dispatcher was hailing him. There were reports of a fight at 10th & Marsalis. One participant was said to have been stabbed and subsequently thrown into the back seat of a blue sedan, possibly a Mercury Monterey, which then immediately left the scene.
You won’t find any record in DPD files on this incident, but according to witnesses at the corner of 10th % Marsalis, it happened…and it happened very close to the time Tippit was killed.
Tippit acknowledged he was responding, put the 1963 Ford Galaxie in gear, pulled out, checked traffic as he eased into the intersection at Jefferson, and stepped on the gas. Employees at Top Ten recall Tippit peeling out and rocketing across Jefferson, headed north towards Sunset and next 10th Street.
The father of three was thinking how he had no partner that day, and not much in the way of back up except William Mentzel who was distracted by an accident. As J.D. blew through Sunset and arrived at W. 10th, he slowed to turn right heading east towards Marsalis. Tippit observed a car headed west towards him on 10th — and away from the scene of the disturbance. It matched, in general, the description of the car said to have left the fight with a stabbing victim in the back seat.
As the suspect car passed S. Bishop, Tippit turned left and fell in behind the target vehicle. Without turning on his flashing lights and using standard police procedure, Tippit sped up, passed the sedan, then forced the car to the curb.
Tippit jumped out, signaled the driver to stay put, and rushed to look into the auto’s back seat. Nothing, nobody there. He had just wasted precious moments stopping the wrong car. Without saying a word to the startled man behind the wheel, Tippit raced back to his patrol car, reversed course, and sped off to the east. The motorist, an insurance man named Andrews, would later describe how the patrolman–badge name TIPPIT–looked upset and was acting wild.
Just after this incident the encounnter with whoever killed Tippit took place. J.D. eased over towards the sidewalk, followeing a man on foot, then tooted his horn. The pedestrian turned, acted surprised, and Tippit beckoned him over to the car. The man approached, bent over, and looked through the front passenger window. Only the car’s little vent window was open.
Tippit opened his car door, slowly climbed out, and adjusted his cap. Tippit reached back and put his right hand on the butt of his service revolver, Western-style. As he slowly made his way to the front of DPD car #10, the young man paralleled him on the passenger-side of the vehicle, easing forward.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Tippit caught the man’s sudden movement, reaching under his jacket to draw a gun. Tippit stepped back and began to turn awkwardly to his right, his own revolver clearing the holster. But with his right hand facing the gunman Tippit was like a left-handed ballplayer at shortstop. The gunman had the drop on Tippit as well as the better angle and position. The last thing J.D. saw were the muzzle flashes as his world faded into nothingness.
As the gunman looked down the barrel of his .38, the patrolman dropped out of sight behind the front driver’s side fender. He jump-stepped back to the sidewalk, adrenalin pumping, and began to hustle away from the dead patrolman’s car.
Helen Markham screamed: “He shot him! He’s dead! Call the police!”
The killer glanced at a woman standing catty corner across the intersection. Looking around, he saw no one else coming — yet. “Poor dumb cop,” the shooter muttered out loud. He jumped the hedges and kept on going, never noticing the crouching cab driver or even his cab.
After purposefully disposing of the shells–and because of the pattern in which they were found, it is highly unlikely they were ejected at the same time. It is much more likely they were thrown down by the killer. The gunman now automatically cut diagonally across Patton from the east sidewalk to the west sidewalk, picking up his pace as he headed south towards Jefferson. He snapped shut the revolver’s cylinder and pointed the gun upwards but at the ready — in a raised pistol position. A stocky white man in a white shirt and tie, Ted Callaway, had come out from the car lot’s office and was just reaching the eastern sidewalk. “Hey, man!” the witness yelled. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” The killer did reply to this, but no one knows what he actually said.
Back at the murder scene on 10th Street a crowd was quickly forming. Reserve Sergeant Kenneth Croy was the first DPD officer to arrive on site. The ambulance was already there, and they were loading Tippit’s body for the race to Methodist Hospital. Someone in the crowd may have handed Croy a wallet at this time, or perhaps Croy arrived at 10th & Patton already in possession of the wallet. As the ambulance pulled out, Sgt. Croy started taking statements from witnesses. Including the nearly hysterical Mrs. Markham, who by this time had placed her shoes on top of Tippit’s car #10 to avoid getting them splashed in the fallen cop’s blood.
An 8” x 10” crime scene photograph depicting J.D. Tippit’s patrol car was later autographed for the FBI historian Farris Rookstool. It was signed by Jim Leavelle, Bob Barrett, T.F. Bowley, Roy Nichols, and Kenneth H. Croy – who reportedly wrote: “First on the scene, recovered Oswald’s wallet there too.”
Witness Domingo Benavides has secured an empty Winston cigarette pack in which he placed the first two shells discarded by the killer. Barbara and Virginia Davis recovered the last two shells along the Patton Avenue side of their rented apartments later in the afternoon.
At 1:40 p.m. Captain Westbrook arrived, but first went immediately to the area behind Ballew’s Texaco where the gunman had last been spotted. Westbrook will involve himself in the discovery of the discarded Eisenhower jacket, then continue to the Tippit murder scene where Officer Croy will hand him “Oswald’s” wallet. Westbrook will show the wallet and its contents to FBI Agent Bob Barrett and several other law enforcement officials — all while being filmed for posterity. But before the end of November 22nd, the alleged 10th St. “Oswald” wallet will disappear for all eternity.
Wallet, shells, jacket…all evidence pointing to a single person who must have represented one of the most incompetent criminals in the history of American law enforcement, Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald will soon be arrested with the alleged murder weapon in his possession in a darkened neighborhood theater. All so very convenient and incriminating.
As the minutes pass, more and more police units flood the central Oak Cliff area as news of a cop killing is broadcast. They arrive in force, racing up and down Jefferson Boulevard like a swarm of angry hornets darting around looking for someone or something to sting. They are about to be pointed directly at a likely suspect sitting in the Texas Theater with a loaded .38 concealed under his raggedy long-sleeved brown shirt.
Store manager Johnny Brewer couldn’t help but notice the man in the lobby of his store acting suspiciously. He called for store clerk Tommy Rowe to come out to the counter to look. As another police car whizzed by, siren wailing, the man ducked back out of the lobby and headed west down the sidewalk towards the Texas Theater.
“That guy’s up to something,” Brewer remarked. “It might have to do with all these police cars racing around.”
“Why don’t you go follow him,” the clerk suggested. “I’ll cover the store.”
Johnny Brewer opened the door and walked through the store lobby and out onto the sidewalk. He watched as the man hesitated in front of the theater, then hurried in. Brewer walked down to the enclosed ticket booth. A concerned Julia Postal was on duty listening to her radio for more news about the assassination.
“Excuse me, but did you just sell some guy a ticket?”
“No, not since about the time the movie started.”
“So, you didn’t just see anybody go in with or without paying for a ticket?”
“No.”
“I think you should call the police.”
Ms. Postal hesitates. She doesn’t want to cause a fuss over somebody sneaking into the movie for free. The police already have enough excitement going on this afternoon anyway. Butch the manager will see the guy, ask for his ticket, and send him back out if he doesn’t have one.
Brewer insists, and after a few more moments of discussion, Ms. Postal acquiesces and makes the call to Dallas Police. Meanwhile, down at the Hardy Shoe Store, clerk Tommy Rowe, a good pal of nightclub owner Jack Ruby, is also putting through a call concerning a suspicious man seen entering the Texas Theater. Several additional mysterious calls will also be received by Dallas Police during this timeframe alerting them to a suspicious individual entering the theater.
Inside the movie house, manager Butch Burroughs is still working the concession stand where Lee Oswald had purchased popcorn some 15 minutes ago. Burroughs hears one of the swinging front doors opening and closing shut. However, he sees no one walking past him in the snack area. Burroughs would later explain the person almost assuredly must have climbed the stairs by the entrance to take a seat up in the balcony. Oswald, meanwhile, remains downstairs seated in the main or orchestra section of the theater.
Based on reports of a suspicious man observed at the Texas Theater, DPD will send at least 15 officers along with several vehicles to the scene. Capt. Westbrook was one of the first to arrive. “Pinky” Westbrook parked his blue unmarked police car directly out front — strange considering Westbrook told the Warren Commission someone had given him a ride out to Oak Cliff. Police will surround all theater exits while the lights are turned on and Johnny Brewer is reportedly escorted onstage by two policemen. Brewer pointed the cops to a man in the back of the theater he said was the individual he had just witnessed sneaking in without paying. Police begin to systematically work their way from front to back, asking each patron to stand up and provide ID. They are perhaps hoping the suspect might attempt to make a foolish dash for an exit. He didn’t, instead sitting coolly and calmly as the cops moved in.
Years later, Tommy Rowe would tell family and friends that it was he who had pointed out Oswald to the officers, not Brewer. Tommy would also be the friend who moved into Jack Ruby’s apartment on Ewing after he was arrested for murdering Lee Oswald.
When the officers get to Oswald’s row of seats, they ask the young man to stand up and show some ID. He appeared to be complying, stood up, but then yelled, “This is it!” and threw a punch at Office Nick MacDonald. MacDonald and Oswald scuffled as nearby cops jumped in. Oswald had allegedly made a move for the .38 Special S&W revolver tucked in his waistband. The cops pounded Oswald for a bit before subduing him, resulting in his infamous and much photographed swollen left eye.
“I am not resisting arrest!” Oswald shouts as he suddenly wises up and realizes the immediate danger he might be in. “I protest this police brutality!” the suspect yells to any witnesses who might be standing nearby and watching the drama unfold.
The police quickly hustled Oswald out the front doors of the old theater. A growing, unruly mob of local citizens greet them raucously under the marquee advertising the war flick matinee double feature. Detectives carry the slender suspect towards Captain Westbrook’s unmarked dark blue automobile — the one he later testifies he never drove to Oak Cliff. Curiously, Westbrook, the ranking officer in charge, instructed the detectives to throw an article of clothing over Oswald’s face to hide the ex-Marine’s identity. Why? What reason would the captain have for protecting the anonymity of a suspected cop-killer? The detectives pushed Oswald into the middle of the rear seat, piled in, and off the vehicle sped to downtown headquarters.
Meanwhile, a far-less viewed minor drama was playing itself out upstairs in the balcony of the Texas Theater. A second young man was in the process of being arrested and brought downstairs — but this individual would be led instead out the rear exit and into the alley where additional police vehicles sat at the waiting.
A very confused theater manager, Butch Burroughs, watched as officers now roughly escorted a second young man from the premises. That young white man, according to Burroughs, “looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something.”
Hobby store owner Bernard Haire operated Bernie’s Hobby House two doors east of the theater. When he heard the growing commotion out front, Haire went to investigate. However, Haire couldn’t see over the dense and unruly crowd, so he walked back through his store and peered into the back alley. Sure enough, the alleyway was filled with cop cars, but not much was happening there. Just when Haire was ready to return inside, one of the theater’s big rear-exit metal doors slammed open and out came some officers guiding a young white man into the back of a squad car. Haire described the man as being flushed, as if he’d just been in an altercation. The police car left, suspect securely inside. For decades, Mr. Haire believed he had witnessed the arrest of Lee Oswald.
In 1987, when Haire accidentally learned the truth that Oswald had been taken out the front doors of the Texas Theater at the time of his arrest — photos convinced him it was true — the hobby store proprietor next asked the $64,000,000 question.
“Well, if I didn’t see Oswald, then just who did I see?”
We have no answer for Mr. Haire, except to mention one curious fact. No second Texas Theater arrest was ever documented. The official police report, however, describes the suspect being arrested in the balcony, while all witnesses clearly agree he was arrested downstairs in the main seating area and brought out front to Cpt. Westbrook’s waiting car.
Within two hours of the President’s death, J. Edgar Hoover already believed his FBI had the case solved. Hoover would go on the premise that JFK had been assassinated by Lee Oswald and Oswald alone, whom he called a “mean-minded individual…in the category of a nut.”
Given the benefit of decades of hindsight, some Hoover critics might opine that the former FBI director had given a more accurate description of himself rather than the suspect in custody. Allowing for the fact that Hoover had in 1960 written a memo warning his agents that someone might be using the so-called Soviet defector’s identity back in the United States, how could Hoover have been so sure of Oswald’s guilt so quickly?
When Oswald was killed less than 48 hours after his arrest, having never left Dallas Police Headquarters alive, Hoover dictated a memo that Sunday afternoon that read, “The thing I am so concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach [Deputy Attorney General under RFK] is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”
Nicholas Katzenbach wrote the following day, November 25 — as the President, Tippit, and Oswald were all being laid to rest — that “the public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”
President Johnson, now ensconced in the White House as the new Commander-in-Chief, was more than happy to see this “something” issued, and quickly. Thus, was born the Warren Commission and its resulting Warren Report, with its pre-determined outcome already decided before Day One of the proceedings. This is the sort of whitewash that would inevitably cook up such inconceivable nonsense such as the “magic” or single-bullet theory.
The Warren Commission was never intended to be an investigation. Rather, it was a publicity stunt concocted to sell a bill of deceptive goods to a highly traumatized American public. The ruse succeeded, at least for a while. As they might say, it was good enough for government work.
Authorities maintained that Lee Oswald had purchased the .38 Smith & Wesson pistol found in his possession when the suspect was arrested at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff on November 22, 1963. However, there is scant proof that Oswald ever purchased that WWII-era handgun…and what measly proof offered is suspect.
Basically, there are no Department of Public Safety, police, or clerk records of Lee Oswald ever obtaining this handgun. We have no evidence of Oswald obtaining a certificate of good character from a judge or justice of the peace. Without the accused having followed any of the Texas laws on purchasing mail order firearms, how was he able to get this Smith & Wesson revolver? How is it possible nobody remembered seeing Oswald or anyone else pick up the handgun? Where’s the beef?
The case against Lee Oswald having been the murderer of Officer Tippit rested partially on the notion that Oswald’s Eisenhower style light-grey jacket was found along the gunman’s escape route. However, not only did investigators fail to connect the jacket conclusively to Oswald, they also failed to connect the jacket conclusively to the individual who shot and killed Patrolman Tippit. The only piece of circumstantial evidence put forward was that Marina Oswald, Lee’s wife, said she recognized the jacket as belonging to Lee. Marina said, though, that both of Lee’s jackets had come from and were purchased in the Soviet Union. The jacket found two blocks from the Tippit crime scene was a brand that had been sold in clothing stores in Los Angeles and Philadelphia — it clearly had not originated in Russia.
Dallas Police officials tried to explain the anomaly by saying that after the passage of so many years, Agent Barrett’s memory must have become muddled. Barrett saw the wallet at police headquarters, not at Oak Cliff. The retired FBI agent was simply mistaken. The official police report on Tippit’s murder made no mention of any billfold being discovered at 10th & Patton.
Of all the pieces of evidence the authorities claimed to have against Lee Oswald in the murder of Officer Tippit, the four hulls or shells were by far the most probative. The forensic examination of the .38 caliber cartridge cases found at the scene of the shooting determined them to have been fired from the revolver in Oswald’s possession 
The killer of J.D. Tippit and the conspirators who plotted to assassinate JFK framed Oswald. Oh yes, the four shells recovered from along the corner house at 10th & Patton were most definitely fired from Oswald’s gun…which at the time of Tippit’s slaying was in Oswald’s possession at the movie theater. The plan was ingenious and has gone undetected until now — nearly 60 years later. We might all agree that 60 years was more than good enough for government work. As it was, the patsy Oswald didn’t even last 60 hours.
Warren Reynolds, located relatively far to the south of E 10th across Jefferson Boulevard, thought he heard maybe four, five, or possibly even six shots. Ted Callaway, located closer to E. 10th just off Patton Avenue, thought he heard five shots. These “earwitnesses” however, would have been blocked from directly hearing the gunshots by the houses situated at 400, 404, and 410 E. 10th. What Messrs. Callaway and Reynolds likely confused with additional shots were echoes bouncing off surrounding structures.
The shells that held the bullets that killed J.D. Tippit remained in the handgun that the killer carried with him as he made his escape from 10th & Patton. That’s why the shells left on the ground didn’t match the bullets in Tippit’s body. The conspirators, in their zeal to frame Oswald with slam dunk evidence, decided to mix the ammo in an exotic blend of Remington-Peters and Western cartridges. They were going for a 360° windmill slam dunk. Only problem was, while the killer counted out the correct number of shells — four — in the excitement he got the exact brand mixture wrong.
When the Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver allegedly in Oswald’s possession in the theater was checked, it contained four live .38 rounds — two Western-Winchester cartridges and two Remington-Peters cartridges. If Oswald had been the shooter at 10th & Patton, and had reloaded, shouldn’t the revolver have contained six cartridges, not four? And had Oswald been the shooter and hadn’t reloaded, shouldn’t the revolver have contained only two cartridges?
On Friday November 22, 1963, a pair of mysterious murders were committed in the city of Dallas, Texas. At 12:30 p.m. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in an open motorcade through Dealey Plaza on his way to give a speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. Some 35-45 minutes later, Dallas patrolman J.D. Tippit was fatally shot on a residential block of Oak Cliff, an inner ring suburb located just across the Trinity River from Dealey Plaza and the downtown area. Authorities would quickly charge 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine and employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, with both murders. After his arrest in Oak Cliff’s Texas Theater, Oswald would vociferously maintain his innocence until his own baffling homicide at the hands of nightclub owner Jack Ruby just two days later — nationally televised in the basement parking garage of the Dallas Police Headquarters.
So, what reasons did the government offer for naming Lee Oswald as the killer of Officer Tippit? The official case against Oswald rested on the following:
To further complicate matters, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that for weeks, perhaps even months prior to the murders of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit, an Oswald lookalike had been impersonating the ex-Marine in a concerted effort to draw attention to Oswald — to portray him as an unbalanced and highly dangerous individual. So, when witnesses claimed to have briefly seen suspect Oswald with a handgun in the vicinity of the Tippit murder, it is unclear whether they saw the real Lee Oswald, his well-documented and often-seen imposter, or someone else entirely.
Several of the Warren Commission’s lawyers told their bosses that it would be a mistake to use Markham’s confusing rendition of events.
While talking to the press, Mrs. Markham had described the gunman as being short, a little chunky, and with bushy black hair. Suspect Oswald was 5’9”, noticeably underweight at 130 pounds, and had receding, thinning brown hair.
Realizing the gunman was now moving in his direction, Tatum put his red Ford Galaxie in gear and eased forward into the 300 block of E. 10th, all the while keeping an eye on the approaching gunman in the rearview mirror. The witness continued to watch as the gunman cut across the lawn at the 400 E. 10th corner property and turned south onto Patton Ave. The killer soon disappeared from Tatum’s view. Tatum said he next exited his vehicle to speak to other witnesses, and to calm the seemingly inconsolable Mrs. Markham. However, upon hearing the general description of the shooter (average white guy in his mid-20s), Tatum realized he also fit the overall characteristics of the shooter, and therefore he decided not to wait around for the police to arrive. The authorities would already have plenty of witnesses anyway. So, Jack Tatum hopped back into his Ford Galaxie and drove away from the scene.
Later, Jack Tatum would grant an on-site interview to Frontline the PBS long running prime time documentary series on American television. Two of the lead researchers on this program were Gus Russo, and Dale Myers.
Barbara (22) and Virginia (16) Davis were sisters-in-law who lived on the bottom floor of the house at the southeast corner of 10th & Patton. It was here, at 400 E 10th, that the gunman cut across the front lawn, jumped through the hedges by Bill Scoggins’ cab, then headed off down Patton Avenue. The killer also discarded the final two of four total spent shells on this property. The first two shells had been found closer to the shooting site by witness Domingo Benavides, who had watched the shooter discard them as he quickly walked west on 10th towards the corner at Patton Avenue. Barbara and Virginia would each respectively recover the third and fourth discarded shells at 400 E. 10th later that afternoon — on the Patton Avenue side of the house.
Virginia, only 16, seemed somewhat confused by the sequence of events. In her original statement to police the young woman said she had gone to the side door, the one that faces Patton Ave., and watched as the gunman walked by towards Jefferson Boulevard. But during her testimony before the Warren Commission Virginia corrected herself and said she had been at the front door, where she had stood behind her sister-in law. The 16-year-old said she could not remember the exact corner (it was the northwest corner) on which Markham had stood. “I don’t remember too good,” was Davis’s explanation. She also thought her sister-in-law had called police before the gunman had cut across their lawn, a near impossibility. Virginia admitted she only caught sight of the killer’s profile and had identified him at the lineup based upon her glimpse of the killer through the screen door and from behind where Barbara stood.
How could any policeman have gotten there so quickly? Sergeant Kenneth Croy, the first Dallas Police officer on the scene, had said he arrived just as Tippit’s body was being loaded into the ambulance — already suspiciously fast. Now Virginia Davis was testifying that Croy was already there before the ambulance had arrived? Which barely came from more than two blocks away at the Hughes Funeral Home. So, the Davis sisters waited until the gunman was gone and out of sight before stepping outside, yet Croy somehow was already there?
The gunman slowed almost to a stop, then mumbled something back to Callaway. However, the used car manager couldn’t make out what the man was saying. By this point the gunman was now carrying his handgun in what Callaway described as a raised pistol position, a technique Callaway had been taught in the military.
Clearly confused, witness Callaway hesitates for a brief moment, knowing the tricky defense lawyer is up to something…but he replies anyway.
Employees of the Top Ten Records store, located a block and a half west of the Texas Theater on Jefferson Boulevard, later claim that Tippit parked his squad car on Bishop Street adjacent to the records store and came in hurriedly while asking to use the phone.
Brownlow said it was actually three men and a woman who jumped on another man at the corner, who was then “violently” stabbed. The wounded man, bleeding profusely, was then inexplicably thrown into the back of a blue Mercury Monterey which sped away from the scene. Many people witnessed the assault. 10th & Marsalis was a commercial corner, with an auto parts store, a plumbing supply store, and other nearby businesses such as the barber shop and restaurant. It was Indian summer, pre-air conditioning days, and most of these businesses had telephones within easy reach. Neighbors and teens home from school also allegedly witnessed the noisy and bloody altercation. (See also, Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare, pp. 447-48)
The employees at Top Ten (Lou Cortinas and Dub Stark) watch through their front window as Tippit’s car goes charging through the intersection and races north up to Sunset Street where Tippit blows through the stop sign and disappears from view. (McBride, pp. 451-550)
The young man does an about-face, turning around to approach Tippit’s car sitting at curbside. Could this young man have been a witness? A participant in the fight? He doesn’t appear to have any blood on his jacket that the officer can see. Tippit and the young man, who is now leaning over, have a brief conversation through the open vent on the passenger-side window.
“Someone” hands Captain William “Pinky” Westbrook a light tan Eisenhower jacket that was allegedly thrown under a parked car behind the Texaco service station at Jefferson & Crawford. This was supposedly the jacket worn by the fleeing gunman. Westbrook, however, can’t remember the name of the officer who turned over the jacket. (Lane, pp. 200-203)
At 10th & Patton, Captain Westbrook of the DPD shows FBI special agent Bob Barrett a man’s wallet. The Dallas investigators are going through the wallet, and apparently find two pieces of ID. Westbrook asks Barrett if he knows who either Lee Harvey Oswald or Alex Hiddell are. Barrett says no. (Armstrong, p. 856) Years later, when the story about the wallet is revealed by FBI personnel, the DPD will say that Barrett’s memory is faulty, there was no wallet found at the Tippit crime scene. But a check of archived Dallas TV news footage proved the DPD wrong. Later, the story seems to change that some unidentified person in the crowd at Tippit’s murder scene must have handed the wallet to reserve cop Sgt. Kenneth Croy, the first officer on site. Only none of the many Tippit witnesses reported seeing a wallet on the ground. Croy, incredibly, never filed a written report on 11/22/63. And Croy, in his testimony before the Warren Commission, said he knew several of the officers who eventually responded to the shooting at 10th and Patton—but couldn’t remember a single name of any of them.
Lee Oswald, still wearing his long-sleeved brown work shirt, is subdued in the main (downstairs) section of the theater by DPD officers and is whisked out the front door to a waiting unmarked police car.(Armstrong, p. 868) Meanwhile, a second slender young white male in a white t-shirt is arrested in the balcony and brought out the back door of the theater, as observed by Bernard Haire, the owner of the hobby store two doors east of the theater. The official Dallas arrest report will indicate that Oswald was arrested in the balcony, while in fact he was actually arrested downstairs in the theater’s ground-floor main section. (Armstrong, p. 871) What happened to the second man who was taken away?
If anyone is looking for ballistics to provide a definitive answer in the Tippit case, they will be sorely disappointed. The ballistics evidence tends to exonerate Lee Oswald as much as it implicates him. (For lengthy discussions of the following, see Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, pp. 151-56 and Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare, pp. 252-57)
Acquilla Clemons, a caregiver who worked on 10th Street, was not simply ignored the same as was Mr. Wright. Clemons, who saw two suspicious persons escape the Tippit murder scene in different directions, told investigator Mark Lane (during a taped interview) that a man she suspected was a Dallas detective or policeman visited her home on or about 11/24/63. He was carrying a sidearm. Mrs. Clemons reported that the visitor warned her “it’d be best if I didn’t say anything because I might get hurt … someone might hurt me.” (McBride, pp. 490-94)
Warren Reynolds, a used car salesman who saw the gunman escaping west on Jefferson Boulevard, was indeed hurt—and very badly. Reynolds told news reporters the afternoon of the assassination that he had seen the fleeing gunman, but was simply too far away to have made a positive identification. The FBI finally got around to interviewing Reynolds in January, 1964, at which time the witness reiterated his original story that he had been located across Jefferson Boulevard and was simply too far from the gunman to have made a positive identification. Two nights later, someone sneaked into Reynolds’ place of business, hid in the basement, and shot Mr. Reynolds in the head with a .22 caliber rifle. Miraculously, Reynolds survived. Even more miraculously, the car salesman made such a dramatic recovery that he now found his eyesight had improved and he was able to identify Lee Oswald after all. (Hurt, pp. 147-48; McBride pp. 476-78)
William “Bill” Scoggins was seated in his cab on Patton Street. (Warren Report, p. 166) He was facing the intersection with 10th Street, when he saw Officer Tippit’s patrol car pass by in front of him. (For discussions of Scoggins’ testimony, from which this material is drawn, see Meagher, pp. 256-57 and Lane, pp. 191-93) He saw no one walk by the front of his cab. The patrol car pulled to the curb on 10th Street approximately 100 feet east of the intersection. Mr. Scoggins’ vantage point was obscured by some bushes at the edge of the corner property on 10th. He suddenly noticed a pedestrian on the 10th Street sidewalk either turn around or walk over to the police car’s passenger side window. Scoggins resumed eating his lunch when, several seconds later, gunshots suddenly rang out. Scoggins, startled, looked up in time to see the officer fall into the street. Soon after the pedestrian, now brandishing a pistol, began walking in the direction of the cab. Scoggins exited his cab, thought about running away, but immediately realized he would be in the open and could not outrun any bullets. Instead, Scoggins opted to hide behind the driver-side fender of his cab. He saw the young man cut across the lawn on the corner property, squeezing through the bushes and stepping out onto the sidewalk very near the cab. Hunkered down by the fender, Scoggins heard the man mumble something like “Poor dumb cop.” He was afraid the gunman might try to steal the cab, but instead the young man proceeded on foot south on Patton towards Jefferson Blvd., crossing Patton at mid-block.
After the Tippit gunman passed Bill Scoggins’s cab on Patton Street, he soon encountered used car lot manager Ted Calloway. Calloway, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, had heard the pistol shots and immediately began walking across the car lot towards Patton to investigate. (Warren Report, p. 169) He soon observed a young man heading south on Patton carrying a pistol in what Calloway would later describe as a “raised pistol position.” The young gunman, who noticed Calloway approach the east sidewalk on Patton, then crossed to the west side of the street to avoid the car salesman. (This following material is referenced in Meagher, p. 258 and Mc Bride, pp. 469-70)
Spence’s final question for witness Ted Calloway was to ask him if he could identify someone in a particular photo. This was the infamous and controversial “Doorman” photo taken by a newsman the moment the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. Some have speculated that the figure of this man in the doorway of the TSBD could have been Lee Oswald. It wasn’t. All evidence instead points to this man having been Billy Lovelady, a lookalike co-worker of Oswald’s at the depository.
The problem with Markham’s eyewitness testimony is that she maintained she saw many things that no other witnesses saw—things that not only did not happen, but that could not have happened.
I have taken the liberty of slightly altering this graphic by putting a circle around Mrs. Markham’s reported position. The graphic is from Mr.Myers’ book, 
J
Witness Domingo Benavides, the closest passerby to the shooting of Officer Tippit, was unable to make a positive ID of the suspect, because Benavides had instinctively ducked down behind the dashboard of his pickup truck when he heard the shots. Benavides mostly saw the gunman as he was walking away, towards the corner of 10th & Patton, while tossing shell casings into bushes along the way. Benavides did report that the gunman had a haircut that was squared off in the back along the neckline of his Eisenhower jacket. Lee Oswald on that day clearly had hair that was tapered in back, not squared off. (WC, Vol 6, p. 451)
Tatum explained that after he made the turn and began driving west on 10th, he noticed an individual walking in his direction (walking east towards Tatum). A Dallas police car was just pulling over to the curb. As Tatum drove towards where the squad car was now parked he noticed the young man leaning over and talking to the officer. The man had both hands in the pockets of his light-colored tan jacket. Tatum continued on to the intersection of 10th & Patton. As he was about in the middle of that intersection he heard “three, maybe four shots.” Tatum continued through the intersection and then braked to a stop.
According to a study cited by the Innocence Project, after 25 feet face perception diminishes. At about 150 feet, accurate face identification for people with normal vision drops to zero.
Could Jack Tatum, while watching a fleeing gunman in his rearview mirror from 100 feet or more away (and remember, Tatum said he drove forward again as the gunman approached), have been able to tell that the corners of the gunman’s mouth turned up? Positively ID him as Lee Harvey Oswald? A gunman in a rearview mirror who was ducking behind trees, bushes, Mr. Scoggins’ yellow cab, and all the while brandishing a pistol?
Yet today, if you watch a documentary, movie, or television show describing Tippit’s murder, Jack Tatum’s version of events is what you are almost sure to see. But it never happened that way, couldn’t have happened that way.