The Tippit Case in the New Millenium

[Ron Bulman]

I looked up the source on a earlier post I Made about Ruby going to the Eatwell café on 11/22 looking for Helen Markham, and, the Secret Service questioning her later in the book Radical Right...  Livingstone credits a letter to him from professor Bill Pulte, who is also a source in the Doris Holan interviews.  I googled him today hoping for more of/on his work with varying results.

His name popped up in relation to a Bill Kelly article on JFK and the Unspeakable.  He's reference # 464 regarding an interview he did with Gary Shaw of Mack Pate in 1989.  Reading the article itself surprised me, in part because I've read the information before and didn't remember it.  I bought Unspeakable within a couple or 3 years after it came out based on reviews I'd read of it.  I think the article subject is relevant to this thread.  It's about James Douglass 2007 interview of Butch Burroughs, Texas Theater employee who sold Oswald popcorn at 1:15.  Mr. Douglass asked him if he had seen anyone else arrested.  He said yes.  Of Oswald's "look alike", "almost like it was his brother".  Who was taken out the back.  Which corroborates Bernard Haire's story.  He says he had a clear view of both the Oswald taken out the front, and, the Oswald taken out the back.  Says nobody ever asked him about it before (and he didn't volunteer anything - wisely?).

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/02/james-douglas-wes-wise.html

Edited May 24, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[James DiEugenio]

Pate is a good witness I think.

I am also beginning to think that the Livingstone book has some good info in it.  Vince P actually recommended it.

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I looked up the source on a earlier post I Made about Ruby going to the Eatwell café on 11/22 looking for Helen Markham,

Ron,

 

The Eat Well Restaurant is interesting.

George Senator ate breakfast there every morning, including Sundays.

(14H193)

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/senator.htm

 

Steve Thomas

[Joseph McBride]

Numerous "witnesses" to the Tippit scene had Ruby connections.

Ruby lived very close to where the murder occurred. He may even have been at the scene of the crime himself. It

has long been claimed by some people that "Oswald" was walking toward Ruby's apartment house for refuge, but since

the Oswald who was arrested on the ground floor of the theater was not at the Tippit murder scene, that is a red herring, though the proximity

between the Tippit murder and the Ruby apartment house may have some bearing on the case. (The two Oswalds theory persuasively argued by John Armstrong complicates the situation considerably, though I am less certain than Armstrong is about which Oswald was where at what time. There may well have been

both Oswalds at the theater -- including the man arrested in the balcony and taken out the back who disappeared and perhaps was the one seen in Carl Mather's car -- another fascinating lead that has not been adequately explained.)

In any case, the Tippit scene was clearly a staged event, and a trap into which the officer

was lured in order to be shot. I write about all this in INTO THE NIGHTMARE. The researcher

who discovered the pattern of Ruby-connected witnesses at the Tippit murder scene was Jerry Rose.

As I write in my book, 

In a 1985 article for his assassination journal The Third Decade, Jerry Rose discussed “the large number of indirect linkages of Ruby and Tippit” and raised the possibility that “Tippit was recruited into a conspiracy against Oswald by employing the linkages between [Oswald’s] own associations and those of Tippit” (see more about this in Chapter 13). . . . 

As was mentioned in Chapter 11, Jerry Rose, in his 1985 article for his assassination journal The Third Decade, offered a new paradigm that could help break through the cloud of confusion surrounding the officer’s shooting. Rose proposed "a relatively original approach here to the question of a pre-assassination relationship between Jack Ruby and J. D. Tippit. What I want to bring out here is something of the large number of indirect linkages of Ruby and Tippit: some of the many 'coincidences' of association between Ruby associates and persons who were either associates of Tippit or witnesses to his murder. The purpose of this analysis is to suggest -- certainly not to prove -- that: (a) Tippit was recruited into a conspiracy against Oswald by employing the linkages between his own associations and those of Tippit; and (b) (an entirely original idea, I think) that Ruby used these same linkages to set up a group of 'witnesses' to Tippit’s murder who would implicate Oswald as the murderer."

 

However, it must be said that at least two Ruby-connected witnesses,

Helen Markham and T. F. Bowley, provided some evidence that was damaging to the Oswald-did-it

hypothesis, though they may have been going off-script (Markham was all over the map,

hysterical and manipulated and unreliable except, it seems, for the question of when the shooting occurred). I did

the first interview with Bowley that he gave other than to the police and the HSCA, and he seemed largely

credible to me, although he did minimize his Ruby involvement, the full extent of which only came out years

after I interviewed him (when the city of Dallas honored him; it seems his Ruby involvement was one reason he

was generally reluctant to put himself forward, although evidently hardly anyone before me had tried, and I found him approachable). It does

seem there were two sets of witnesses at that RASHOMON-like Tippit murder scene,

which took me years to try to sort out.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Joseph McBride

[Gene Kelly]

Steve:

Ruby's role is understated in the Tippit shooting. Earl Crater of the Pig and Whistle restaurant said that Oswald, Ruby and Tippit had breakfast there on a number of occasions at 7am. Crater said that Oswald never had more than a cup of coffee. In "The Other Murder - The Death of Officer Tippit Revisited", Larry Ray Harris wrote the following:

The widespread public acceptance of Oswald's guilt is such that the Tippit murder has been virtually relegated to a historical footnote. This was borne out by the House Select Committee on Assassinations; whose 1979 final report devoted a scant three paragraphs to the policeman's death -- concurring with the 1964 Warren Report conclusion that Oswald was a cop-killer. The Report also dismisses the rumor that Oswald lived near Jack Ruby, pointing out that their residences were a mile apart. However, the Tippit shooting took place only two blocks from Ruby’s home on Marsalis St..

There are accounts that one of the men observed at the Tippit scene resembled Ruby; other rumors exist that Ruby was in the Texas Theater when Oswald was apprehended. Professor Jerry Rose asserted that Ruby’s role was to assemble a group of ‘witnesses’ to Tippit’s murder (e.g. Warren Reynolds, the Davis sisters) who would testify that Oswald was the murderer. Add DPD officer Harry Olsen to the milieu of Jack Ruby associates: Olsen was fired in December 1963 and moved hastily to California with his girlfriend, Kay Coleman, another Ruby stripper. Joe McBride's book reveals that Olsen and Coleman spent several hours in a parked car with Ruby, egging him on to kill Oswald; Olsen was also responsible for the characterization of Jack Ruby as being distraught over "poor Jacqueline" having to come back to Dallas. Then there is the mysterious Dallas Police car number 107. On April 10th, the day of the Walker shooting, Jack Ruby placed a long-distance phone call from the Carousel Club to one Clarence Rector in Sulphur Springs Texas. A week later, the Dallas Police sold a 1962 Ford patrol car (# 107) to a used-car dealer who also lived in Sulphur Springs.  This same cruiser was cited as the mysterious vehicle parked outside of N. Beckley by Oswald's landlady just after he ostensibly arrived at his boarding house.  The car seen by Earlene Roberts was possibly the same car purchased by Rector, and later seen in the alley of the boarding house ... and tied to Jack Ruby.

Gene

[Joseph McBride]

Fascinating point, Gene, yes. Further investigation is warranted. I would just add that Earlene Roberts

was the housekeeper. Gladys Johnson was the landlady. I met

Mrs. Johnson once at that rooming house. She showed me Oswald's

room (it was so tiny it was almost like a closet)

but was very guarded and suspicious. Roberts was

infirm and died in 1966.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Joseph McBride

[Gene Kelly]

Thank you Joe ... and I enjoyed your book.   Quite a lot of good information to contemplate. I can certainly envision Ruby (and cohorts) purchasing the old DPD cruiser and using it that day (with rogue cops) to stage the ceremonial killing of Tippit. Ruby is a lot like Kevin Bacon (i.e. Six Degrees) and the assumption that anyone involved in the Hollywood film industry can be linked through their film roles to Kevin within six steps.  Ruby seems to have ties to everyone, if you look hard enough. 

Regarding the tiny room in Gladys Johnson's rooming house, i have had the same experience in first visiting Dealey Plaza.   Being from Philadelphia, I was expecting something more expansive, like Fairmount Park, but the plaza is small (and the knoll is so close).  I recall one researcher remarking that it seems like a diorama ...  certainly an ideal ambush site and layout, with plenty of ingress/egress points.  I'm curious as to  why you characterize Oswald's room as "guarded and suspicious" ... is it because of the evil that emanated from it?  Perhaps the reason for such relatively small landmarks (perceiver larger) is the gravity of the story, and JFK's legend ... that makes it all seem bigger than life.

Best,

Gene

[Joe Bauer]

Gene, I think JM was referring to Gladys Johnson as being guarded and suspicious.

I've never been to Dealey Plaza let alone Texas.

However, I've read many times how first time visitors to the JFK murder scene are surprised as to it's smaller scale size.

How the motorcade planners with Secret Service approval could not see the potential danger of having JFK's limo take two 90% turns in such a short distance into and through that tight area just sickens you.

[Rick McTague]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Gene, I think JM was referring to Gladys Johnson as being guarded and suspicious.

I've never been to Dealey Plaza let alone Texas.

However, I've read many times how first time visitors to the JFK murder scene are surprised as to it's smaller scale size.

How the motorcade planners with Secret Service approval could not see the potential danger of having JFK's limo take two 90% turns in such a short distance into and through that tight area just sickens you.

Joe,

I've appreciated your intelligent postings here on EF for a few years now and thought I'd reply with a pic I took in February of this year, since I live ~30 miles north of Dallas.  I go to DP a few times a year, on a Friday, timed to grab a cheeseburger at a tiny little diner on Elm then walk around DP around noon-12:30.  I am always struck by how small and compact the whole area is, with the TSBD sort of looming over the whole place.  

This picture is taken from about 25' from the south knoll, standing on the overpass above Commerce street, the southern-most street in the Elm-Main-Commerce junction.  I am directly above where James Tague stood on 11/22/63.  The two maroon cars in the center lane are directly over the two marked X's where the powers that be said JFK was hit.  

I hope this helps provide some perspective.

Thanks

Rick

[David Josephs]

Here's a little point about the Jacket and WESTBROOK and how whoever ran to Jefferson had nothing to do with that jacket 

 

Mr. WESTBROOK. Actually, I didn't find it--it was pointed out to me by either some officer that--that was while we were going over the scene in the close area where the shooting was concerned, someone pointed. out a jacket to me that was laying under a car and I got the jacket and told the officer to take the license number.

Mr. WESTBROOK. It was actually on Jefferson, but the place where this jacket was found would have been back closer to the alley, Mr. Ball. 

the policeman who discovered the jacket in a parking lot behind a nearby service station was assigned call number '279'; his identity, however, was “unknown" according to a notation on the transcript. The name of the officer who recovered the jacket, disclosed here for the first time, was John Mackey. A motorcycle officer who went on to obtain the rank of sergeant in the DPD communications division, Mackey responded in an angry and evasive manner when I approached him for an interview in 1978. Beyond a cursory account, he refused to discuss his finding of the jacket 15 years earlier. "That information," he told me, "might be something they (senior DPD officials) don't want given out."  -Larry Harris "COVERUPS" 1985

Mr. Hutson: That occurred while we were searching the rear of the house in the 400 block of East Jefferson Boulevard at the rear of the Texaco station. Behind cars parked on a lot at this location, a white jacket was picked up by another officer. I observed him as he picked it up, and it was stated that this is probably the suspect's jacket. (Hutson said, "Captain Westbrook was there and he was there at the time this was picked up")

Mr. HUTSON. The last time I saw this jacket, the officer had it in his possession.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know who he gave it to?
Mr. HUTSON. No, sir; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. You don't know if he gave it to Captain Westbrook?
Mr. HUTSON. I don't know. Captain Westbrook was there behind the house with us, and he was there at the time this was picked up with the man, but I don't know who had it in their hands. The only time I saw it was when the officer had it.

 

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Where is that information about Earl Crater Gene?

Is it credible?

[Joe Bauer]

Really interesting pic of Dealey Rick.

Thank you so much for posting this and the personal compliment as well.

Your picture brings to my mind the reality of how much closer JFK's limo really was to everything in DP when he was hit. 

It appears to be a "tighter"  scene than photos taken from the limo's side show of more open grass areas such as the knoll and the area where Mary Moorman is standing.

The rifle shots must have been very loud in that "bowl" layout. 

Heck, Roger Craig and his sheriff co-officers heard the shots and they weren't even in Dealey Plaza but slightly around the corner on Main street when they occurred.

Even Lee Bowers heard them and he was tucked back into the rail yard and in an enclosed structure!

Edited May 24, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Paul Brancato]

The question I have is why Tippit? 

7 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Thank you Joe ... and I enjoyed your book.   Quite a lot of good information to contemplate. I can certainly envision Ruby (and cohorts) purchasing the old DPD cruiser and using it that day (with rogue cops) to stage the ceremonial killing of Tippit. Ruby is a lot like Kevin Bacon (i.e. Six Degrees) and the assumption that anyone involved in the Hollywood film industry can be linked through their film roles to Kevin within six steps.  Ruby seems to have ties to everyone, if you look hard enough. 

Regarding the tiny room in Gladys Johnson's rooming house, i have had the same experience in first visiting Dealey Plaza.   Being from Philadelphia, I was expecting something more expansive, like Fairmount Park, but the plaza is small (and the knoll is so close).  I recall one researcher remarking that it seems like a diorama ...  certainly an ideal ambush site and layout, with plenty of ingress/egress points.  I'm curious as to  why you characterize Oswald's room as "guarded and suspicious" ... is it because of the evil that emanated from it?  Perhaps the reason for such relatively small landmarks (perceiver larger) is the gravity of the story, and JFK's legend ... that makes it all seem bigger than life.

Best,

Gene

 

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

The question I have is why Tippit? 

 

That's a loaded question Paul.  He was dirty, dense, useful, and expendable for starters.  Sold pills at a local drug store booth.  Good chance he was involved in "overlooking" prostitution involving Ruby as well as gun running.

[Michael Clark]

2 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

That's a loaded question Paul.  He was dirty, dense, useful, and expendable for starters.  Sold pills at a local drug store booth.  Good chance he was involved in "overlooking" prostitution involving Ruby as well as gun running.

There is a lot of speculation and no loss for unflattering characterizations about him, but what do we really know? What is the truth? When I hear Mrs. Tippet speak, I don't see a woman who would marry the lowly man that we often think of when we read the common stories about him. I would like to see a fresh and fair evaluation of him. I think he may have been more intelligent and capable that we are told. I think it would make a good thread.