James DiEugenio

Now, comes the coup de grace. The Carl Mather incident. (ibid, pgs. 526-33) Just six blocks south of Oswald's rooming house, was the El Chico fast food restaurant. This is where a mechanic named TF White saw a car with a man behaving furtively in the parking lot. He and his partner had heard the news of JFK's death. They heard all the squad cars with their horns on in the area. So they knew something was up. His partner convinced White to go up to the car and look at the guy. He did. And he then wrote down the license plate number. The car then drove away, speeding. When he got home, he told his wife about it. Then on TV he saw Oswald's picture--and jumped out of his chair and said: this was the guy hiding in the car! No one interviewed White until local reporter Wes Wise heard of the story. Wise tracked down the license plate number to Carl Mather. Mather worked for Collins Radio, a CIA proprietary company that did high level communications work for the Pentagon and the CIA. Colins supplied the ship the Rex with telecommunications equipment in violation of Kennedy's ban on the CIA outfitting Cuban exile ships with such stuff in 1963. The Rex worked out of JM Wave. They had also been awarded in 1963 with a large contract to build a transmitters system in Vietnam. Mather had been with the company for 21 years Need I add that George DeMohrenschildt knew Admiral Bruton, a Collins VP, and met with him in October of 1962. He introduced Bruton's wife to Marina. And tried to get Oswald a job with the company. But it now gets even better. Mather and his spouse were very close friends with TIppit and his wife. And Mather said he visited the TIppit home on 11/22/63 at about 3:30. Wes Wise said that when he had dinner with the Mathers shortly after the assassination, Mather was so upset he could not even eat. When Jim Douglass asked WIse to try and explain what had happened, Wise said "Well, you're aware of the idea of two Oswalds, I guess." Before Davey goes spastic about Wise being a tinfoil nut, Wise ended up being the mayor of Dallas.

Why did Oswald go to the Texas Theater in the first place? We know there are no stenographic tapes made of his detention. We only have a few pages of notes, from the hours upon hours of questions he submitted to. DId Fritz ask him this question? Did he test him with questions like: Give me the directions to the theater from your rooming house? Had he ever been there before? What was the name of the film playing there? Why did he go to that particular theater? These are all important questions, which to my knowledge have never been answered. Yet they are fundamental to the official story. Here is another one: Who did Bernard Haire see going out the back, while Oswald was led out the front? See, as McBride notes--you did read this book right Davey?--the first police dispatches about the theater were, "Have information a suspect just went in the Texas Theater on West Jefferson...Supposed to be hiding in the balcony." (ibid, p. 521) How did that info get there if Oswald was not in the balcony at all? Yet, as McBride notes, the homicide report on TIppit reads, "Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater at 231 W. Jefferson." (ibid) Haire of course saw the cops take a white male, about 25 with dark hair out the rear of the theater. Haire watched as the man was driven away in a squad car. Haire thought he saw Oswald being arrested. When Oliver Stone came to town to film his movie, he told the film crew that, hey they were wrong, Oswald went out the back. When the assistants showed him the pictures they based their depiction on, Haire said, "Well, then who did I see being taken out of the rear of the theater?" (ibid)

Now, if the order to go to Oak Cliff was actually on the broadcast tapes on 11/22, then why did TIppit disobey the order? We know this since five witnesses saw him sitting in his squad car at the GLOCO filling station at1502 North Zang Blvd. WhIch is at the northernmost point of Oak Cliff; but the order said to move into the Central Oak Cliff area. (ibid, p. 422) Further, this was not where he said he was when he allegedly replied to the dispatcher that he was at Kiest and Bonnie View. (ibid) That was five miles away. The witnesses said he was looking at a viaduct which connected up at the other end with Dealey Plaza. In fact, from where TIppit was watching, you could be in Dealey Plaza on that viaduct in about two minutes. He then headed out and drove down tenth street, but he stopped a business man named James Andrews. This was a couple of blocks from the theater. Tippit cut in front of Andrews and forced him to stop. TIppit got out and motioned for Andrews to stay still. He then looked in the back seat of the car. When he saw nothing, he went back to his car and drove off. (ibid, p, 448) PS Davey never answered the question I submitted to him. Where did the list of 24 witnesses go, and why could the FBI not find it? Keep blowing smoke Davey, I am about to demolish you again.

Now, let us really question this series of events the way a good DA, or any skilled attorney would. But we must add the rubric, "if he was looking for the truth." Bugliosi was not, and neither is Davey. First, how and why did Oswald go to the Texas Theater? 1. If Oswald shot TIppit, why did he leave his wallet there? And if he did not, then who did? Because as we know the official story says he gave it to a cop in the squad car on the way to the station after his arrest. But yet, we now know that a second Oswald wallet was left at the scene. 2. Why did he make it to Tenth and Patton in world record time for a walker, yet make like a turtle with arthritis to get to the Texas Theater from 10th and Patton? In Bugliosi's book, what he does with this is amusing. After walking so fast--like the comic book character Flash-- that no one saw him get to 10th and Patton, Vince now says that it took him so long to get to the theater because he was hiding behind trees, in doorways, in the gutter etc. Yeah sure Vince, and no one saw him either way, right? 3. Why did Tippit stop Oswald? I think everyone here understands that the whole Brennan story is baloney. I mean as Ian Griggs shows, Brennan very likely was never at any Oswald line up. And we also know he refused to be cross examined by the HSCA. Who requested an interview something like nine times. And there were no SS agents to give a description to in DP.. 4. Why was TIppit in the wrong area of the city? The DPD did all they could to hide this fact. They rearranged the signal tapes 3 times to explain this. (McBride, Into the Nightmare, p. 422) And in the third version, finally appearing on March 20th, the order to go to Oak Cliff finally appeared. Naming only two cops to go to Oak Cliff, when almost the entire force was headed to Dealey Plaza. Even though, and its a kicker, there was already a cop stationed in Oak Cliff. (ibid) By the way, McBride's book pretty much demolishes the conflicting stories that dispatcher Murray Jackson gave over the years as to why this order finally showed up the third time around. As McBride now pungently notes: is it just a coincidence that Oswald had an Oak Cliff address?

Like his mentor Vince Bugliosi, Davey has a real problem with quoting testimony and acknowledging evidence that counters what he says happened. So let me repeat what I wrote above. Then why did the police never submit the official list of patrons drawn up by the police for the Texas Theater? The estimate is about 24. Even the Warren Commission worried about what happened to this list. John H Ely: "Captain, you mentioned that you had left orders for somebody to take the names of every body in the theater, and you also stated you did not have this list. Do you know who has it?" Westbrook: "No." The Warren Commission then told the FBI to try and find the list. They could not. Hmm. Wonder why? Maybe the incorruptible DPD just made a mistake and misplaced it right? Now, would an attorney have made a big deal of this in court? Yep. Does Davey: Not a peep. PS: Davey, doesn't Oswald have a bruise on his face also? What, did they do? Duke it out one handed with guns drawn?

Not within recent memory. BTW, as Steve noted, Don Gibson's discussion of this incident in Battling Wall Street, is the best I have ever seen anywhere. That book was out of print, but it has been reissued. Its the best book on JFK's economic policies by far. What he portrays it as is this: not just JFK vs US Steel. He argues that at the time of this incident, the Power Elite understood that JFK was really going to try and reform and expand the domestic economy, and not opt for early globalization. Therefore, they wanted to test him on this issue, make a direct challenge to his authority.

Mark: That is Howard Roffman in his early book, Presumed GuIlty. Which Bill likes a lot. And it is a good book for its era. BTW, Howard went on to law school, from which he graduated at an early age. In fact, I think he wrote his book when he was something like 19 or 20. He ended up being the corporate lawyer for Lucasfilm. That idea of Oswald coming up from below, and not above, is also used in Don Thomas', Hear no Evil. Which is an interesting book. (BTW the whole "coming down the stairs from above" baloney is detonated in the Ernst book about Vickie Adams. And he found her before she died.) Roffman/Thomas is a solid argument I think. But I don't advocate it myself anymore. As I noted, I came to this through Weisberg's book Whitewash 2, in which he refers to Baker's first day affidavit. But he did not have the original documents in the book. So I found them online. But Harold did note how the DPD began to change Baker's affidavit that night. I then noted the Baker dialogue with Dulles, and this lead me to the whole issue of him preparaing the affidavit in the witness room with Oswald, which Dulles tried to soften the impact of.

DJ: There has been a concerted effort to smear JFK's reputation, and to minimize the importance of his life. The clear inference is; if his life wasn't significant, then why should we even be investigating his death. This can also be seen in the books published by surviving Secret Service agents, attempting to essentially blame JFK for his own assassination, when they should be feeling immense guilt over their failure to protect him. You got that right all the way. How about Gus Russo? On the Tom Brokaw special for the fiftieth, Russo got Richard Reeves to say that NSAM 263 only referred to people like cooks and custodians. Which would be funny if it were not so obviously politically motivated BS.

Well, that is correct. Though I don't like quoting Churchill. Even if JFK did like him.

Davey, I proved nothing except that you have a really irrational way of evaluating evidence in this case. For fifty people to all contradict the WC story and for you to say, "What, me worry?" And you see nothing wrong in that. I will answer your question when you answer any of mine.

I think David is correct on this issue about the Harper fragment. And that is pretty much fatal for the WC zealots.

LOL I once put together a list of fifty witnesses who all contradicted the official story in a serious way. Davey accepted them by saying they were not lying. That is the kind of case he defends. What? Fifty people? Is that all you could come up with? And the band played on. With Davey as the drum majorette.

Thanks Mark. Davey does not get that. And he just discovered that I don't think Oswald killed Kennedy or TIppit. " What I do is show that what you are trying to portray as what the real story is, that is simply not credible." He somehow missed what I was doing for all those years. Maybe next he will discover that he is part of the prosecution? Will wonders never cease?

Here is a quote from Betting on the Africans, another very good book about JFK's foreign policy: Prior to the Democratic convention, he (JFK) told Harris Wofford that if Stuart Symington or Lyndon Johnson were the nominee "we might as well elect Dulles or Acheson; it would be the same cold-war foreign policy all over again." (p. 37) Kennedy's Undersecretary of State George Ball explained JFK's ideas from a slightly different angle: Postwar diplomacy had rested largely on the assumption that the United States ... was a status quo power, while the Soviet Union was essentially a revolutionary power, and that the United States would benefit by encouraging stability, the Soviet Union by exploiting turbulence ... The Kennedy Doctrine challenged this approach ... If America failed to encourage the young revolutionaries in the new countries, they would inevitably turn toward the Soviet Union ... America should, therefore, stop trying to sustain traditional societies and ally itself with the side of revolution. (p. xiv)

Davey: Maybe you have a bad attention span, or maybe you have problems with reading comprehension. I am just quoting the record, a record that you constantly leave out. Now, my implication is that the problem you have in adducing that complete record is the same one the WC did. They knew that what they left out impeached what they put in the WR. Its not my job to say what really happened. I am part of the defense team. What I do is show that what you are trying to portray as what the real story is, that is simply not credible. And the stuff that makes it so incredible is right in the record you avoid. So the question is: Do you do this on purpose? Or are you just not a very good researcher? (There is a third alternative of course: through some genetic background, you have the same DNA strain, as say, David Belin.) As per people not giving credible testimony, I mean please, leave that one alone. Everyone knew that the WC was a runaway prosecution. They were never going to indict anyone for perjury. Its only if you did not rack up the official story that they got on your case. Then, they would not leave you alone. You got phone calls in the middle of the night, you were harassed at work, in some cases you lost your job. (See RP, p. 202) I mean you did know this did you not? If not, then again, you are a poor researcher. Its right there in the record. Therefore, people understood what was needed from them. As Stringer said to the ARRB, under those conditions, most people go along.

Oh really Davey? Then why did the police never submit the official list of patrons drawn up by the police for the Texas Theater? The estimate is about 24. Even the Warren Commission worried about what happened to this list. John H Ely: "Captain, you mentioned that you had left orders for somebody to take the names of every body in the theater, and you also stated you did not have this list. Do you know who has it?" Westbrook: "No." The Warren Commission then told the FBI to try and find the list. They could not. Hmm. Wonder why? Maybe the incorruptible DPD just made a mistake and misplaced it right? Now, would an attorney have made a big deal of this in court? Yep. Does Davey: Not a peep. PS: Davey, doesn't Oswald have a bruise on his face also? What, did they do? Duke it out one handed with guns drawn?

Martin, yes I agree Newman's book was a game changer. Ken: Nixon got out of Vietnam because he knew that the war was not winnable and he did not wish to see what happened to LBJ happen to him. In fact, he actually said this to Haldeman. Also, he wanted to construct, as Pat said, a Decent Interval strategy around the 1972 election. That was his second strategy; he first fought of such things as invading North Vietnam, bombing the dikes, and using nuclear weapons. Instead he decided to just spread the war to Cambodia and go for a nuclear alert in October 1969. None of it worked. So he went for gradual withdrawal combined with bombing and Vietnamization. Then the phony peace treaty and the Decent Interval. While about 21, 000 more Americans died, and millions in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos.

In other words I am not calling McDonald a xxxx, the evidence is doing it. You never answered my question did you? Why did you not check the evidentiary record before submitting another of your tall tales? Further, you have absolutely no respect for: 1.) The works of the critical community which have demolished every aspect of the Warren Report many times over, 2.) The legal process. As I said, in a court of law, McDonald would have been, to put it kindly, impeached nine ways to Sunday. But somehow, you cannot countenance that fact. Can you? So you leave out all the facts that would detonate his story--including the other cops and the FBI!

Thanks for walking into another one Davey. From Joseph McBride's Into the Nightmare p.202: "Did Oswald pull his gun only after McDonald drew his? A claim McDonald made in an article he wrote for the November 24th Dallas Morning News but omitted from his later accounts!" (Geez Davey, how did you miss that one? Which one was the lie then?) Syliva Meagher finds it hard to believe McDonald's written account of his behavior as he approached Oswald, "I was crouching low and holding my gun in case any trouble came." McDonald goes on write that Oswald punched him, drew his gun and tried to fire it. Meagher notes, "Here is a truly sensational admission, one which undermines the whole official version of the arrest--for no one of sound mind can possibly believe that Oswald punched McDonald, or tried to draw his own gun, while the policeman's gun was already pointing at him" McDonald's written claim that although he heard the hammer of Oswald's pistol click, "The primer was dented and it didn't fire." was disproven by an FBI firearms expert, Courtlandt Cunningham, who testified that "we found nothing to indicate that this weapon's firing pin had struck the primer of any of these cartridges."

Continuing with the evidence: Unfortunately for McDonald’s claim, there is no support from any of McDonald’s fellow DPD Officers in their reports or in their Warren Commission testimonies, that McDonald was responsible for resolving the situation. In fact, the following is from Charles Walker’s Warren Commission testimony concerning the Library incident. Mr. Belin Then what did you do? Did you go into the library? Mr. Walker As soon as the squads got there, I walked around with the other squads to the west entrance of the building, and we ordered everyone out of the building. They all came out with their hands up. Mr. Belin Was this the upstairs? Mr. Walker No; it is the downstairs. You had to go downstairs to get to it. Mr. Belin Something like a basement? Mr. Walker Yes. It is a semi basement, I would call it. And everyone came out, and I saw the person that had run in there, and he said that he had ran there to tell the other people about the shooting. And let's see, that he worked there, he told me he worked there and everything. I soon determined he wasn't the one

Continuing with the evidence : Let’s also keep in mind that McDonald claimed during his Warren Commission testimony that he was responsible for resolving the false alarm at the Jefferson Branch Library - following the broadcast by Officer Charles Walker on the DPD radio that he had seen the Tippit murderer run into the Library. The man Walker observed turned out to be Adrian Hamby, who worked at the Library as a Page. The following is from McDonald’s testimony. Mr. Ball And did you get a call over your radio to go to a certain place? Mr. McDonald Well, there was a report from the dispatcher that a suspect was seen running into the public library at Marsalis and Jefferson. Mr. Ball You went down there? Mr. McDonald Yes, sir. I went directly to Denver Street, which is an alley at that point. It is still designated as Denver Street. I parked the squad car, took my shotgun, and went to the west basement entrance to the public library, and ordered the people in the basement, in the library outside. They came out with their hands up. The boy immediately said that he had just run into the library to tell the people that the President had been shot. He was a much younger person than what was broadcast on description on the radio.

Continuing: Given the fact that no other DPD Officer or witness to Oswald’s arrest recalled hearing him shout out what McDonald claimed, and given the fact that McDonald initially claimed Oswald shouted out “This is it” and then claimed Oswald shouted out “Well, it’s all over now”, common sense tells us that beyond a shadow of a doubt McDonald was lying. However, do dishonest lone gunman kooks mention any of this? Absolutely not. (Please note: During an interview with researcher Ian Griggs in 1996, Johnny Brewer, who allegedly spotted Oswald outside his shoe store looking “funny/scared” claimed he heard Oswald say words to the effect “It’s over now”. However, he made no mention of this during his affidavit to the DPD in December 1963 (here), or in his interview with the FBI in March 1964 (here, page 14) or during his Warren Commission testimony. As mentioned previously, none of the other arresting Officers ever claimed to have heard Oswald say anything prior to punching McDonald. Therefore, Brewer’s claim to Ian Griggs was a lie.)

Continuing in the deconstruction of Davey's favorite cop: The following is from Hawkins’s testimony. Mr. Ball He was--he [McDonald] walked over to the right aisle, did he? Mr. Hawkins He walked from the right aisle and came in from the person's right. I was about three rows from--still in the same aisle, on the left aisle and about three rows from McDonald and Oswald when I heard him say, "I've got him," or "This is it," or some words to that effect. Mr. Ball Did you hear Oswald say anything? Mr. Hawkins Not at that time; no, sir; I did not

Ok, Davey, see its not enough just to say, "Oh you say everyone is lying." And then post stuff from On Trial or CBS. So just to show you what bad research you do, let us quote the actual article. First the whole "Well its all over now." In this article, I discuss the various demonstrable lies told by DPD Officer Nick McDonald. As most researchers are aware, McDonald was the first DPD Officer to approach Oswald inside the Texas Theatre. McDonald had ordered Oswald to stand-up, after which Oswald allegedly yelled out “Well, it’s all over now” and then punched McDonald in the nose. After punching McDonald, Oswald allegedly reached for a revolver inside his belt and then tried to shoot McDonald (for a discussion of this issue, please refer to this article). In this article, I explained that during an interview with WFAA-TV on the day following the assassination, McDonald claimed that just prior to being punched in the nose by Oswald, Oswald had allegedly shouted out “This is it”. However, in his arrest report to DPD chief Jesse Curry, McDonald now claimed that Oswald had shouted out “Well, it’s all over now” – and not “This is it”! During his Warren Commission testimony, and during subsequent interviews, McDonald maintained that Oswald had shouted out “Well, it’s all over now”. As I have explained previously, no other DPD Officer or witness to Oswald’s arrest claimed they heard Oswald shout out the words “This is it”, or “Well, it’s all over now”. However, I had neglected to mention that DPD Officer Ray Hawkins claimed during his Warren Commission testimony that he heard McDonald shout out “This is it” – and not Oswald! The following is from Hawkins’s testimony.

My review of the Rakove book, which I think is a very, very important book about JFK's foreign policy. If you cannot read the book, at least read my review of it. A very well researched and even handed approach to the subject from a very smart and scholarly man. http://www.ctka.net/2014_reviews/rakove.html