Duke Lane

John, I've been told that "everyone in the basement was identified by DPD except for the Asian reporter, who remains unidentified to this day. The DPD list is keyed by number to a scale diagram of the scene which, unfortunately, was not published by the WC." There remains the possibility (at least) that this is available through the Dallas City Archives JFK Collection, available online (click the link). Unless you're on a slow dial-up connection, your best bet is to check the Database link and do a search for "witnesses" or "newsmen" or whatever you think might turn up this info. The "complete index" is not particularly useful in this regard. My guess is that it's someone in law enforcement, but only because a reporter would seem to want to be closer to the action (Oswald) than this guy appears to be. Good luck, let us know what you find! See post above.

I wasn't suggesting that all faces are perfectly symmetrical ... although, if you read farther down the page, you note the question "Why are symmetrical faces attractive?" So is it better and more accurate to say that "not all faces are perfectly symmetrical?" In any case, the forensic anthropologist's "rule of thumb" is that faces are roughly symmetrical, enough so to be able to identify someone from. I think that's the case in the first three photos at that link: while neither of the composite photos exactly resemble the original, the resemblance is close enough to be able to identify her. I think it's fair to say, too, that absent great deformities, one side most people's faces resembles the other side. So if two sides composited together show what appears to be two different people, can it be said that it probably is two different people? Maybe I'll find that photo somewhere ... or perhaps even Jack White will be kind enough to post it for us? (Of course, never having done so before, it'll get posted in my "composited" mode and he'll say he'd figured that out aeons ago, just hadn't gotten around to showing it to anyone yet!)

I think you drew the line straight down the middle, but only because there are no "pie slices" out of the faces. White's deal had the dividing line running at an angle ....

I hardly consider Jack's "axiom" as any kind of "standard," but rather as something that "just goes to show" how, when you're proven wrong, you're really right. It is perhaps understandable why Jack "has had more experience with disseminators of disinformation than anyone else in the JFK research community:" have you see his work to prove how Apollo 11 and 14's moon landings were hoaxes? Click here to view these wondrous analyses! Of course, Jack has also determined that I am a "disinformation agent" and implied that I work(ed) for the CIA. I gather that determination to be rooted in the fact that I have dared to not agree with every theory espoused in the JFK thing, and even managed to discredit one or two of them, as well as the fact that I said that "my company" was transferring me to Virginia some years back (equation: "company" + "Virginia" = "CIA"). If Jack had even the slightest clue about me, he'd know otherwise. If he believes what he says, he is a fool. Which must mean that he does not, otherwise "the more intense the attack, the closer you are to the truth," ergo "no attack" = "far from the truth." "Making" money and "keeping" money are two different things. It's like saying you don't "make" money at work because you spend it all on food, shelter and clothing. One spends an awful lot of time dealing with something one "couldn't" care less about. To make money to recycle it to support further research? Clearly, some people have doubts, whether or not you consider them reasonable. This amounts to nothing more than saying "we've proven it to our own satisfaction." If that was a "standard" of any sort, no defendant would ever be acquitted as long as the prosecutors believed he was guilty! Even the most painstaking research can reach incorrect conclusions. This response will, of course, "prove" that I am the "disinformation agent like [my] mentor David Perry," as Jack has charged (that "some people think") elsewhere on this forum. C'est la vie.

Yeah, that's the one. Now, does anyone have one with the line of where the face is supposed to be divided?

Duke, That is fascinating. What you say certainly lends support to the two-Oswald theory. Do you still have the images, or could you repeat what you did and post the results here? Ron Ron, I don't still have the images, at least I don't think I do. If you or someone will point me toward one of the books that has either this whole photo or Jack's "cut" of it, I will try to do so. I just don't have time to go searching for one myself .... Once I have it, I'll scan it, cut it, copy and rotate it so that one side overlaps the other and, hopefully, that should reproduce the two photos. One condition, tho': you can't tell Jack White that I've ever lent any credence to anything he's ever said, okay? Honestly, I did not expect what happened, and the only truly amazing thing is that nobody else that I know of - including Jack - has ever done this little experiment, or published the "proof" it offers. And I did this over ten years ago!! Scary, isn't it?

Here ya go! This is a start of a 'virtual tour' of some of the "interesting" places around Dallas. I've already gotten the okay to do the inside of the Texas Theater this way once they have finished renovations; maybe, for whatever it might be worth, I'll do the inside of the Abundant Life Temple, although I'm not sure what would be valuable to have photos of, flat or spherical. Click here to play the virtual tour. If you have pop-up blockers enabled, either disable them, or hold down your Ctrl key when you click the link. Java must also be enabled on your computer. Some notes: * None of the photos have anything annotated onto them, such as where the "sniper's nest" window is on the TSBD, or where Tippit was shot on the 10th St view. * The spherical shot of Dealey Plaza has some people (actually, artifacts of people) edited out. This is because each photo consists of one overexposure and one underexposure, and with people moving their "ghosts" remain on the blended image, but they don't really look like real people. * Harlandale is one very scary neighborhood! * Photos were all taken on November 22, 2005. I'll probably add more photos and spheres as time goes on (or allows).

Duke and Lee, Sorry about the mixup. My bad. Thomas Thomas, Somewhere deep within the foul, ugly depths of my being, I'm sure I can find some way to forgive you!! Duke

The person someone would want to consult on this question is a forensic anthropologist, one of those people who put faces back onto skulls. They would be able to provide much better advice on this than any "photo expert out there." Speaking of which (forensic anthropologists), I spoke with one in Virginia some years ago, attached to the Virginia State Police or the Chief Medical Examiner's office, I forget which (if the latter, I forgot to ask to speak with Kay Scarpetta!). What he told me was interesting. I'd asked how someone could identify a person if all they had was, say, half of a skull or half of a photo. He explained to me that the prevailing presumption or rule of thumb is that one half of a person's face (or facial structure) is very nearly a mirror image of the other. With that in mind, I took the photo that Jack White made famous, the "Alex Hidell" photo he posited was an amalgam of two faces, pasted together on a diagonal axis. I cut the full photo on the axis Jack had suggested and then made two copies of each half on transparency "paper," then put the two corresponding "halves" together (e.g., the upper-right half with the upper-right half reversed), and found two very different-looking men. With one, I had to draw in a chin, and the other had a pie-slice out of the top of his head, but it was not difficult adding those details to the renderings. What I then did was to take both composites to the Fairfax County (VA) Police Department and spoke briefly with a detective there. I showed him the "Oswald" half (the upper right portion, as I recall) and asked him who it looked like. He said "Oswald." I told him that that's what I'd thought, too. I asked him if I had other similar questions, could I visit with him, which he (somewhat resignedly) said "sure." Whatever made me happy, I guess. I came back a couple of weeks later and showed him the "Hidell" half and asked him who he looked like, and again he said "Oswald." I then showed him the first composite and asked if the two images were of the same person and he said that, no, it didn't appear that they were, although there was a similiarity. Clearly, the "Oswald half" was in fact Oswald, he opined, and the "Hidell half" was someone who resembled Oswald. I then showed him the original "composite" and asked him who it was. Again, he said it looked like Oswald, but it could be someone who merely looked like him. I showed him a photo that was unarguably Oswald (I don't remember now which one), and he again said that the subject of that photo was clearly the same person as the "Oswald half." Then I explained my conversation with the forensic anthropologist - he agreed, based on his limited knowledge, that that had always been his understanding (both sides of a person's face being basically the same) - and then how I'd made each of the two "photos," from one "official photo of Oswald." He asked for a copy of the original and the transparencies, said he found them interesting, and promised to get back to me. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, (at least, as Jack would like to think) The Company (or did I mean "my company?") transferred me back to Texas and I never heard from the detective again (nor did I seek him out, and no longer remember who he was). Nevertheless, there's your answer: contact a forensic anthropologist ... who is not akin to a Warren Commission apologist, despite the homophonic similarity!

Various thoughts: Those persons who actually get away with such things are in the "business" of knowing what it takes. Therefore, diversionary activities and tactics are an inherent part of any such plan. 1. Soft Drink Bottlers association meeting & RMN:-------Drain on Police resources & "overload" of City Management. Beyond the possible "overload of City Management" due to a former US VP being in town, I don't see a bottler's convention as being any sort of "drain" on police resources. After all, Dallas was, is, and has long been a "convention city," and I have been involved with several of them in more recent years, presumably much larger than one whose relatively few attendees would be those handfuls of people who actually bottle Pepsi (or Coke or beer) around the country. I'd be interested in seeing that info, but at this point I'm a tiny bit skeptical simply on account of the fact that, of the extant transcripts of DPD radio traffic, nobody was dispatched to them, while there yet remain several burglaries and other "petty" crimes that officers were directed to (and then told to ignore, or ignored on their own), up to and including a report that a couple of guys were filling their gas tank at a service station in west Oak Cliff with a rifle in the back of their car. The "investigating" officer of that incident, incidentally, was R.C. Nelson, the other officer who was ordered into Oak Cliff along with Tippit, but who chose to ignore those orders ... and even informed dispatch that he was doing so as he was doing so! Nelson seemed to have been hell-bent upon getting to the Tippit scene, and was later misdirected ("suspect last seen heading north on Patton from 10th" or words to that very similar effect ... after LHO had been taken into custody! Um ... have you done this sort of thing before? Only kidding, but it certainly does make sense ... but was it done? I've never heard of it .... To paraphrase Ms Clairol, as she used to ask, "did he, or didn't he?" Got more info on this? One thing I'm not certain of; perhaps you can clarify it for me? Ex-Presidents have received SS protection after leaving office for the rest of their lives until (and including) Bill Clinton. Now, they only get SS for a limited time, as I best recall. The question is what, if any, ex-Vice Presidents got or get afterh they leave office? I agree that it's possible that, if ex-VPs got SS protection after leaving office, those agents were well-enough versed with SS procedure to have pulled off having been on-duty SS agents following the assassination. But the questions which arise, in addition to the above, are: 1) Were those SS agents (and who were they, anyway?) more loyal to their jobs or to RMN (or any other person they're protecting)? 2) Do they rotate their positions within the SS or stay with a sole protectee and, along the same lines, how much "say" does a protectee have in who protects him (or, someday, her)? 3) Even assuming a great loyalty to the protectee, can they be persuaded to accomodate the protectee's wishes, even if those include murder ... and moreover, murder of someone in an office that they are sworn to protect? It would seem that whatever you might assume along these lines, it would have to include that anyone in such a position was acting upon their own initiative rather than being directed by anyone. or that whoever the "SS agent" was, was merely in a position to know enough to be able to pull it off.

I will attempt, over the next few weeks, to find my Tippit autopsy information, and will post as much of it as I'm able. It does support the coup de grace description insofar as the head shot goes, though I cannot recall if it mentioned powder burns or anything of that sort (which wouldn't be absolutely necessary, I wouldn't think, if the shot were fired even from hip height).

I'd include the shot of 3126 Harlandale, too, but I've apparently exceeded my global image limit (the others are only 50K each). It's in a pretty run-down neighborhood, "scary" enough that this house has an orange-on-black "No Trespassing" (or was it "Posted?") sign on it.

This is a shot of the old Abundant Life Temple on the southeast corner of 10th and Crawford, one block west from where JD Tippit was shot. The building does not actually have a basement per se, i.e., a level that is fully below ground level. It appears, looking in one of the ground floor doors (near the right rear of the building in this shot), that the lowest level floor is perhaps 2-4 feet below the level of the street, but no more than that. It can perhaps be considered a "basement" inasmuch as it is below the level of the main entry at the front of the building, and I'd probably call it that myself. As you can see, the structure has three levels at the front, including the "basement." Why only the basement might be considered somewhere someone might be hiding - since it is where most of the entrances are - versus any other, I don't know. If a weekday's activity there today is the same as it was 42 years ago, then I'd certainly say that it's unlikely that anyone would have been able to get in any other than the street level doors, and NOT into the main doors. After all, the Abundant Life Temple - or the Revival Tabernacle, as the building is called today - is not exactly St Mary's Catholic Church, where you might expect to see people coming and going all day. This is a photo of the church from the rear, actually from the middle of Jefferson Blvd. The yellow building is the old Bellew's Texaco, and it is essentially unchanged since well before 1963 according to the owner, whom I spoke with on 11/22/05, except that they no longer pump gasoline. As to the church, the rear part of the structure has four levels, the ground floor being slightly below street level. I have not yet been inside, but I have the name and phone number of the pastor, and hope to be able to visit soon. You'll also notice that there is nothing - and never has been - other than a parking lot between the rear of the service station and the rear of the church. Thus, someone who had veered off of Jefferson Blvd behind the old Texaco would not have very many places to go to hide, especially if you rule out the church. Also, to the right of and behind the station is where the "abandoned houses" were. They have been razed and replaced with some sort of warehouse structure. The alleyway that runs between and parallel to 10th and Jefferson is a part of the parking lot here, and does not actually become an alleyway, per se, until you have passed the church building going east from Crawford. The alleyway continues west on the other side of Crawford (not visible in this shot). Also not visible in this shot, behind me, is ... ...the Hughes Funeral Home, still standing after all these years. An interesting footnote that I had not been aware of before today, even though I've been in the neighborhood several times. Regarding driveways going from the front to the rear of the 10th Street homes, that is not the case today and I don't believe it to have been the case then ... only because there is another "street" of homes that front onto the alleyway! The "alleyway homes" that I saw — on the second, third and fourth lots east of Patton — were easily 40 years old. Thus, there was not only a dwelling fronting on 10th Street, but there was also one behind it, with a distinct possibility that the same did not hold true for the Davis' home at 400 E 10th (the corner home). This is a photo of the home at 321 E 10th, two homes in from the northwest corner of the 10th & Patton intersection (the "Helen Markham corner"). The one beside it to the left is very similar. It is of the "rooming house" variety, as were other of the homes along the street, including that where Tippit was thought by the Davis sisters-in-law to have lived (the third from the southeast corner, the "Scoggins corner"). This is the view that Helen Markham would have seen looking along 10th St from where she'd been standing when the shooting occurred: You can see, if only barely, that there are new homes being constructed on the street. This is the view looking down Patton toward Jefferson: The area enclosed by the stockade fence along the east side of the street is where Domingo Benevides and Ted Callaway worked; this is the view Callaway would have seen looking up Patton toward 10th: 10th St is where you can see the house on the left side of the street; the alleyway is at the end of the fence along the right. Just out of view (to the left) in the above photo is the "gentlemen's" or dominoes club where Scoggins hung out: I also shot a 360° panorama from both the "Markham corner" as well as directly in the middle of the intersection. I will provide a link to that as well. Meanwhile, this is a wider-angle view of 10th & Patton: Just for the sake of it, here is the "safe house" (if you ask me, there's nothing "safe" about this place ... not when it's got "POSTED" signs all around it!) at 3126 Harlandale. I'd say very few people would have fit into this place! If anyone wants larger (640x480 up to 2272x1520) images of these, send me a PM with your email address in it. (Incidentally, the edit on this post was to reduce the image size and free up my global space. I also added the Harlandale photo and wide-angle 10&P shot.)

Duke, That would be greatly appreciated. I did some aerials myself using Google Earth. There was too much foliage, and the image deteriorated when I drilled down too far. I probably still have them - if you'd like I'll email them to you. Thanks for the update on the area. A shame that it wasn't properly documented previously - or if it was, perhaps someone has a reference? The houses, the alleys, the Abundant Life Building? Sounds like the cops thought it had a basement.- lee Got 'em, along with a few others including 3126 Harlandale (mace-less!). More on them later .... Duke

An excellent and "almost" original concept, which could have merit. At least worthy of mention. You may wish to check into the other three or so items which were also occurring, which if recalled correctly included a bank holdup, a fire, and I believe that it was a bomb at the YMCA. (these three items along with the RMN in Dallas eliminate the "original" concept for the idea) I don't recall seeing those items mentioned in the DPD tapes — there were plenty of other incidents that officers were told to ignore — but I'll look into them. The question remains, tho': how many officers left their posts in Dealey Plaza, with or without notification, in person or by radio, and responded to them? If memory serves, the answer is "nineteen" with respect to the Tippit call.

I will be in the area today — or, if not today, then next week — and I'll take a few photos for you. The Abundant Life Temple (ALT) was at or near the corner of 10th and Crawford, one block west of the Tippit scene. While it could easily have been reached by the shooter — who was last seen going behind the Texaco station at the corner of Jefferson and Crawford, i.e., back in the direction of ALT — I think it more likely that he was picked up in a car somewhere along Crawford rather than having ducked inside. Still, being inside is a possibility given the perfunctory "search" of the premises: one cop merely asking the women inside if they'd seen anyone come inside and, being told they had not, he simply went back outside, where he stood, leaning against a police cruiser, chatting with another officer. There was, then, apparently plenty of time to search the place, contrary to whatever leads you to believe that there might not have been. I wish I could remember where I'd seen some fairly good low-level aerials of the area that showed where the ALT, the abandoned houses that were searched, and several other points of interest were located. As for the immediate area of the shooting, as you will see in the photos I'll be taking, it has changed considerably and is now undergoing some much-needed rehabilitation, with new garden homes being constructed, including one at the site of the rooming house in front of which Tippit was killed (the first two homes in from the corner — the Davis sisters-in-law's and the next one in — have been demolished and are now just vacant lots. There are no driveways to speak of for them, as I best recall at the moment). Scoggins' "gentlemen's [or dominoes] club" is now an auto repair garage. The alleyway still exists, however. There are generally no basements in Texas, in homes or otherwise, but if possible, I'll check to see if this particular building (the ALT) has one.

It looks really planned, doesn't it? I mean, it's so clean, and almost predictable. It reminds me of like, watching a Marilyn Manson performance. Designed to shock and think, "Oh, it's so terrible, that poor police officer." But when you step back, it looks extremely theatrical and staged to the last detail. I think a police officer had to die, to staple in everyone's mind that this guy had this problem with authority, and why else would Tippit have to die unless Oswald was supposedly scared of being arrested? If you didn't want to draw suspicion on yourself, why shoot a police officer in broad daylight? If Oswald did it alone, he managed to murder the President of the United States in a packed Plaza in broad daylight, with only a VAGUE description of him getting out, and people doubting his guilt forty years later. WHY, would someone THAT intelligent, shoot a police officer in broad daylight with tons of witnesses nearby, and no one that could be mistaken as another suspect. Well, the WC's deal, of course, was that Oswald "wanted to get caught" to enjoy his 15 minutes of fame. But as Harold Weisberg said (in Whitewash, I think), if he wanted to get caught, why run? There weren't all that many witnesses about, and I don't think it mattered that any of them saw the shooter, any more than it mattered that his fingerprints might be on the shells he emptied onto the Davis' lawn (not that I suspect there were any on 'em anyway). The shooter wasn't going to get caught (he wasn't), someone else would be blamed (and was!), and others would ensure that any traces he left behind were obliterated (they did and they were). The "problem with authority" issue, I think, is an unintended but fortuitous by-product of the killing. The main purpose of the Tippit shooting was to draw as many police away from Dealey Plaza as possible. That is, it was a diversion, plain and simple. If you check officers' reports and testimonies, you'll see that that worked as well! Given the magnitude of the crime downtown, can you think of anything less than killing a cop that would draw sufficient attention to virtually empty DP of cops and allow anyone who was involved to escape? For all the things that DPD didn't do while there, is it possible, even probable, that given additional time, they might have done them eventually, like searching cars' trunks (boots), etc.? The main questions in my mind is why Tippit and Nelson were chosen: it was not pure dumb luck, good or bad, that Tippit happened to be where he was ... tho' Nelson had the good luck of ignoring his orders (even telling the dispatcher that he was!) and ending up at the TSBD. Did someone have a gripe with him, or was he merely considered expendable, not much of a loss at all? After all, he was only ever considered a "hero" after he failed to successfully defend himself!

Thomas, As I recall (without looking anything up), the "coup de grace" witness came up during the HSCA hearings. He was driving a car eastward toward Patton and watched the whole thing, he said. In any case, I have a copy of the Tippit autopsy (somewhere!) and photos from it, and he clearly has a hole in his right temple; what I cannot remember offhand is whether there was any notation in the autopsy report of "powder burns" or other indications that the bullet was fired from closer than the others that hit him in the thorax. Lacking those references immediately, to pursue the "self defense" angle, you'd have to suggest that whomever it was that JDT stopped was a "quick draw" since the inference would be that an experienced police officer got out of the car pulling his own gun, and the person JDT "pulled over" noticed this and was able to draw and shoot his weapon before the cop — whose weapon was either already drawn or in the process of being drawn — could bring his own weapon to bear against the "suspect." There is also the question whether the "suspect" could have seen that with the car between him and the cop. Think about it: a cop pulls up beside you in a hard-topped vehicle. You might even lean in toward his window to "converse" through the closed window (if pulling over a suspect, I can't imagine a cop leaning across the car to manually roll down the window to talk rather than simply getting out of the car, can you? Go through the motions yourself and tell me if you find yourself in a position of "control"), but once the cop starts to get up and out of his car the roof will be in your line of sight, you won't be seeing him draw his gun. On the other hand — or, from the opposite perspective — you can imagine JDT getting out of the car, noticing that the "suspect" was drawing on him, reaching for his own gun and managing to get it out of the holster — but not to where he could use it against the "suspect" — before he was hit and fell down, with the gun beneath him. Too, if JDT was drawing down on the "suspect," who drew and fired after seeing the cop's gun being drawn against him, one might possibly expect that, if JDT was prepared to fire in the first place (rule of thumb: don't draw unless prepared to fire), the gun might end up elsewhere than under his body, perhaps beside it. This is hardly conclusive in any respect, but frankly, an "innocent civilian" should hardly be expected to draw on and fire at a police officer whether or not the officer is drawing his gun or already has it drawn. Perhaps that might be mitigated when, unprovoked, the officer draws a bead on you, but by that point, it's pretty well too late: you're not going to get your gun out and shoot him first. Today (i.e., in the last 20 years or so), police are trained to draw quickly and to train their gun on a suspect immediately. This is not a casual endeavor: they don't "pull a Barney Fife" and get out with their hands on their guns as if they might draw, but to draw with certainty and intent. Drawing a gun is not a casual affair: it signals someone that you are prepared to fire upon them, and if you fire upon them, you are prepared to kill them. How many "innocent civilians" are willing to "duel" with a trained professional who intends, if necessary, to kill them? The only testimony regarding "state of mind" is that of Helen Markham, who characterized it as a "friendly" conversation or encounter. If there were conflicting testimony, I might be inclined to discount HM's characterization, but lacking it, I'd be hard pressed to manufacture this scenario beyond mere speculation. What — beyond speculation — would suggest "self-defense," even leaving the "coup de grace" out of the equation?

Why would Tippit have been "searching" for LHO? The only two answers to that could be either (i) Tippit knew in advance that Oswald either was going to shoot JFK or that he'd be blamed for it, or (ii) he wasn't. Why would any cop be "searching" for anyone connected to the events in Dealey Plaza along the sidestreets of quiet little Oak Cliff? Was it a rule that killers escaped only to the south and east? The patrol districts all around downtown, including west Oak Cliff, had nobody patrolling in them; the regular officers in all of those other districts had responded to the "Signal 19" downtown, and nobody was ordered into those districts "for any emergency that may come in." Escape routes to the north and west were ruled out for some reason? If searching for a killer escaping along the "usual" southerly route, why would anyone expect him to be on foot? To make a fast getaway? Maybe another rule was that people who shoot guns (and Presidents!) can't drive ... which of course leads to the corrolary that police officers (who drove) couldn't shoot guns, which in turn leads to the obvious need for Jack Ruby to do the Oswald shooting. But wait! Jack had a car .... Okay, nevermind. It was a good idea, tho', eh? Another one of those assassination oddities. Imagine someone who lives in Oak Cliff - and had, in at least three different residences over a period of months - who didn't own or drive a car actually walking in the area! Ludicrous! Believe me when I tell you, it didn't happen in any other American city! (As a point of reference, in most other cities, killers escaped the scenes of their crimes only to the northeast!)

Quite so. It was my father and grandfather's name.

Here I go again ... (some parts left out for brevity). While I've yet to read Harry's latest book (having been cited as "one of Mary Farrell's people" in his Killing the Truth, Mary of course being a "CIA plant"), as per usual of late, it seems he raises more questions than answers them. There were definitely two and possibly three officers named Tippit (or Tippet), including one on the vice squad (Special Services Bureau), which seems like was always one of Ruby's targets to get to know; that one frequented the Carousel and Vegas clubs. I have heard of Tippit being "corrupt," but have never heard any proof, or even allegations beyond that broad statement: corrupt, how? The "womanizing" could well be the key to how he managed to get himself shot, and at the least one should wonder if Steven Thompson could have had anything to do with it. (He didn't, but people should wonder this long before they should wonder other things.) I am wary of people who claim to have been a witness to things like this so long after the fact and without corroboration. The call at 12:54 does indeed place him at 8th and Lancaster, but where does the call just eight minutes prior to that one place him? The answer to my last question is that the call eight minutes before the 8th and Lancaster call places him ... in his assigned district! The next question is: does anybody know where Mentzel was? The answer to that one is: "in his assigned district having lunch." So if the regular officer for district 94 was in district 94, why was Tippit needed there? Marie Tippit said that Anglin was JD's best friend. I have often had difficulties with the timeline presented here, that JD had coffee with Billy at a quarter to twelve, then went home to lunch at twelve (farther south still from his assigned district) for half an hour, then fifteen minutes later was already clearing a call several miles from home and blocks off of the highway. This could take a long time to go into, so I won't do it now, but realize that MOST of the districts surrounding downtown in all directions were EMPTY: the assigned officers responded to the "Signal 19" (shooting) at Dealey Plaza. "Central Oak Cliff" was the ONLY district singled out for "emergency" coverage while at the same time being one of the few that the regularly-assigned officer was actually IN the district and did NOT go downtown. Quite so. While Virginia Davis denied it later (in Dale Myers' With Malice), she was not the only one on record as putting JD Tippit in that neighborhood fairly frequently. Go back to the question about womanizing. Gotta run to a dentist appointment (some fun!). More later if there's a chance.

Allow me to interject some thoughts here: That is accurate enough in and of itself, but another question that should be asked (among others) is why anyone, even in 1963, would think that an assassin would be walking away from a murder scene!? In fact, wouldn't that actually be the last thing someone would think? This is broad speculation and not supported by fact. A review of the assignments of DPD shows that nearly ALL districts had patrols with only ONE officer assigned to (i) individual cars and, often, (ii) individual districts. Those districts that had two officers assigned showed them with separate call numbers, which translates to different radios and, therefore, different vehicles. Hello? Tippit's regular "beat" was south and east of where he was killed. Why should he have been downtown? That was not ever his assigned district. That once again assumes that he was stopping a "suspect." There is nothing to support that speculation since he did not radio in. It is only assumed because (i) it is assumed that the man he approached was Oswald, and (ii) that Oswald became a suspect well after the fact. Leaving aside the fact that the car window was not rolled down, I don't find it difficult to imagine that the fellow Tippit pulled up beside smiled at him ... but not for any reason I've heard suggested by anyone else. His role was "victim" and "diversion." Helluva way to be "involved" in a conspiracy, but then, everyone's got a part to play, eh? ;^)

As Jack White would probably expect me to say, no problem, I'm going to let you live this time!

Some believe that Duke Lane is a disinfo provocateur like his mentor Dave Perry. He attended JFK Marrs classes at UTA till he told some there that his "company" was transferring him back to Virginia. Jack Let's get some facts straight here: First, I never claimed David Atlee Phillips was arrested in Fort Worth; I said that Robert Morrow had made that claim in his book, First Hand Knowledge (see the photo section). According to Ken Wilson, I was the first person outside of his own family to ever talk with him about this incident. Basically, James' assertion above is bass-ackwards, tho' I'm sure well-meaning. Second, if Jack or anyone else can find anything I've ever written not being 100% factual or not backed up by evidence, by all means bring it on. Of course, like Dave Perry's stuff, it bursts a couple of bubbles that people have inflated, but if you'd rather read and believe BS just because it sounds good (or conspiratorial), then I suppose that's your choice. I prefer facts. (What facts mean is always open to interpretation, but having the facts is important.) Third, most of us work for a "company," be it large or small. Using this word to describe one's employer should not be — and normally wouldn't be, by a non-paranoid mind — considered unusual. "Back" to Virginia is also a mis-statement by Jack since I'd never been there before, except driving through in 1977 (and then only in the back country). Fourth, for the record: Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy of individuals and some groups of people. Who they are has yet to be determined, and certainly not proven ... and certainly not any of the people who's stories come with "rights!" Finally, Jack, for what it's worth: I've never said a bad word about you. Please be careful of what you say about me ... especially if what you think is true!!

I much appreciate your praise for my book, thank you. And I agree it "raises as many [or more] questions than it answers." If there's anyone alive who could retrace the items that once existed in Nagell's Zurich swiss deposit box, that'd be fantastic, but I'm afraid I don't know of any such person. Dick, I've always most enjoyed your description of TMWKTM (COPA, DC, 1995?) as "the book that grew too much!" I'm the guy scheduled to speak behind you that time that you didn't realize was there because I'd gotten lost on the DC subways!