The Tippit Tapes: A Reexaminaion

[James DiEugenio]

This is an interesting, and at times, a compelling reexamination of the Dallas radio tapes, largely focusing on the TIppit case. 

It tries to show how and why so many cars were out of position, with no real explanation.

And it also shows why certain aspects of those communications are likely ersatz. Probably added afterwards as part of a cover up.

(K and K likes to give opportunities to new authors.)

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-tippit-tapes-a-re-examination

 

[Kevin Balch]

I am still working my way through the article. I’d say that the Tippet sighting at the GLOCO station is far more credible than the sightings at the Top Ten Record store or Tippit frantically stopping cars. I have yet to hear a coherent scenario incorporating the Bill Drenas “Car #10 Where are You?” timeline. Looking at a current map of Dallas, I couldn’t see how Tippit could have accessed Lancaster from the GLOCO station. But in historical maps from the late 1950s -  early 1960s I see that it was possible.

I was skeptical that anyone at GLOCO could have heard the shots in Dealey Plaza. I used an online sound attenuation calculator to see if a rifle which creates a 150-160 dB sound at 1 meter could be heard 2000 meters away. The sound would have been attenuated but remained above the estimated 70dB sound of local traffic on the Houston Street Viaduct, assuming the listeners were outside and not near any loud tools. This is particularly true if the shots originated at an elevated position like a building.

Similarly, R. C Nelson would have easily heard the shots.

Note: I did not consider the effects of wind and temperature attenuating the sound. There was a wind out of the southwest at the time of the shooting which would make the GLOCO station almost directly upwind from Dealey Plaza. I will look into this and see if there is any information that would require modifying my intial conclusion. 

FINAL NOTE: For reasons discussed in my subsequent post, I now believe it is doubtful but not impossible tgst the gunshots could have been heard above ambient noise levels at the GLOCO station.

Do the GLOCO witnesses say they actually heard the shots?

https://www.wkcgroup.com/tools-room/inverse-square-law-sound-calculator/

Edited May 10 by Kevin Balch

[James DiEugenio]

I am not sure they were asked that.

About Top Ten, Whitten actually was on to this in his inquiry and wrote the place a letter.

Its a pretty dense article, and there will be two attachments up soon.  

Edited May 10 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

What is clear is that Tippit could have been at Dealey Plaza for the main event, and at the Gloco station 15 minutes later. 

[James DiEugenio]

True, but I really doubt that.

[Kevin Balch]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I am not sure they were asked that.

About Top Ten, Whitten actually was on to this in his inquiry and wrote the place a letter.

Its a pretty dense article, and there will be two attachments up soon.  

Jim I’m forced to conclude that it is far less likely that the gunshots could have been heard at the GLOCO station.

Specifically:

1. Sound waves traveling upwind tend to be refracted away from the ground and the effect becomes more important at distances exceeding a few hundred meters (GLOCO being about 2000 meters away). This could attenuate the sound levels by as much as 25 dB.

2. Direct solar heating at ground level tends to accentuate the decrease in temperature with altitude which also tends to bend sound waves away from the ground. I haven’t found specific numbers but it is stated that the attenuation could be several dB.

3. Gusty winds tend to scatter sound waves away from direct straight line paths.

All three of these conditions are known to have been present or likely to have existed at the time of the shots.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/tx/dallas/KDAL/date/1963-11-22

Each of these effects would tend attenuate sound waves by perhaps at least 30 dB, bringing the sound of gunshots even at the upper levels of estimated loudness below the ambient noise of traffic.

While it can’t be definitively ruled out, it would be risky to assume that the witnesses at the GLOCO station heard the gunshots unless they specifically stated that they did so.

For the science geeks, this article goes into the physics involved:

https://www.acoustics.org.nz/sites/www.acoustics.org.nz/files/journal/pdfs/Hannah,_L_NZA2007_(a).pdf

Edited May 10 by Kevin Balch

[Kevin Balch]

13 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

What is clear is that Tippit could have been at Dealey Plaza for the main event, and at the Gloco station 15 minutes later. 

Why would Tippit need to be in Dealey Plaza?

While I don’t agree with Dale Myers computer graphics supporting the single bullet theory, I do accept his debunking of “Badgeman”.

Further, Lee Bowers described in some detail the men he saw behind the fence and not once did he ever claim there was a uniformed police officer or a construction worker.

A person in a police officer’s uniform might have an easier time getting in or out of a secured area such as the TSBD. By himself he always draws attention of civilians especially when in a marked car. Not something desired when you want to be discrete.

Edited May 10 by Kevin Balch

[Ron Bulman]

On 5/10/2024 at 9:22 AM, Kevin Balch said:

Jim I’m forced to conclude that it is far less likely that the gunshots could have been heard at the GLOCO station.

Specifically:

1. Sound waves traveling upwind tend to be refracted away from the ground and the effect becomes more important at distances exceeding a few hundred meters (GLOCO being about 2000 meters away). This could attenuate the sound levels by as much as 25 dB.

2. Direct solar heating at ground level tends to accentuate the decrease in temperature with altitude which also tends to bend sound waves away from the ground. I haven’t found specific numbers but it is stated that the attenuation could be several dB.

3. Gusty winds tend to scatter sound waves away from direct straight line paths.

All three of these conditions are known to have been present or likely to have existed at the time of the shots.

What are you talking about here, gunshots from Dealy Plaza being heard at the Gloco station across the Trinity River?  By, Tippit?  This is all a bit nutty.  Where does this come from.

[Michael Kalin]

On 5/9/2024 at 8:35 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Its a pretty dense article, and there will be two attachments up soon. 

In the meantime the matter of Larry Crafard, a poster boy of speculative scenarios, merits a discussion.

In the 3/13/64 memo referenced in the article Burt Griffin indeed identified "four persons who are known by name and have been mistaken, because of their appearance, for Oswald: 1. Robert Ahler ... 2. Lee Harris ... 3. Dudley Lee Ferrell ... 4. Larry Crafard aka Curtis Laverne Crafard." He also noted that Hoover was asked to provide photographs & personal histories of each. I'm not aware of either photos or reports relative to the first three, but Crafard was the subject of minute attention.

In an earlier memo (3/10/64), Griffin noted parenthetically that "many people stated [Crafard] closely resembled Oswald." One can only assume he changed his mind after viewing the photos eventually provided by the FBI. They show a slight resemblance at best. What is more interesting is Griffin's speculation relative to the identity of Whaley's passenger, suggesting it may have been Crafard, acting in the role of an Oswald double. Is this where it all began? It certainly set the pattern for flights of fancy involving Crafard as a plug-in man whenever the presence of an Oswald doppelganger is desired.

The Crafard pattern established by Griffin is this: 1) absence of evidence; 2) putative geographical proximity; 3) exaggerated resemblance of LC to LHO; and 4) ignoring or breezily brushing aside Crafard's alibi.

It was totally unexpected that an article proposing to re-examine the tapes would have so much to say about Crafard, but it might have been welcome if a factual basis for his alleged activity had been provided. Instead it's stuck exactly where Griffin was stuck long ago. He never got to first base, and everyone since retailing Crafard delusions is trapped in the on-deck circle.

Relevant documents can be found here.

Edited 21 hours ago by Michael Kalin

[Kevin Balch]

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

In the meantime the matter of Larry Crafard, a poster boy of speculative scenarios, merits a discussion.

In the 3/13/64 memo referenced in the article Burt Griffin indeed identified "four persons who are known by name and have been mistaken, because of their appearance, for Oswald: 1. Robert Ahler ... 2. Lee Harris ... 3. Dudley Lee Ferrell ... 4. Larry Crafard aka Curtis Laverne Crafard." He also noted that Hoover was asked to provide photographs & personal histories of each. I'm not aware of either photos or reports relative to the first three, but Crafard was the subject of minute attention.

In an earlier memo (3/10/64), Griffin noted parenthetically that "many people stated [Crafard] closely resembled Oswald." One can only assume he changed his mind after viewing the photos eventually provided by the FBI. They show a slight resemblance at best. What is more interesting is Griffin's speculation relative to the identity of Whaley's passenger, suggesting it may have been Crafard, acting in the role of an Oswald double. Is this where it all began? It certainly set the pattern for flights of fancy involving Crafard as a plug-in man whenever the presence of an Oswald doppelganger is desired.

The Crafard pattern established by Griffin is this: 1) absence of evidence; 2) putative geographical proximity; 3) exaggerated resemblance of LC to LHO; and 4) ignoring or breezily brushing aside Crafard's alibi.

It was totally unexpected that an article proposing to re-examine the tapes would have so much to say about Crafard, but it might have been welcome if a factual basis for his alleged activity had been provided. Instead it's stuck exactly where Griffin was stuck long ago. He never got to first base, and everyone since retailing Crafard delusions is trapped in the on-deck circle.

Relevant documents can be found here.

FWIW, your link has an FBI document that stated that Crafard often ate at the “Eat-Well Cafe”. This was where Helen Markham worked and was her destination when she became an incidental witness to the Tippit murder. 

[Michael Kalin]

FWIW Ruby frequented Eat Well, too.

[Greg Doudna]

True, Craford's face does not look closely like Oswald's in any of the photos. Yet it is fact that people who had never met Oswald before were confusing the two from some sort of similarity, cases in point: at the Contract Electronics store, and waitress Mary Lawrence at the cafe near the Vegas Club the night before the assassination. Clearly both cases it was Craford, but witnesses were thinking it had been Oswald.

So it is a logical non sequitur, Michael K., when you say:

6 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

In an earlier memo (3/10/64), Griffin noted parenthetically that "many people stated [Crafard] closely resembled Oswald." One can only assume he changed his mind after viewing the photos eventually provided by the FBI. They show a slight resemblance at best.

Because nothing in those photos changes that witnesses in fact were confusing memories of encounters with Craford as if they had encountered Oswald. Not people who knew Oswald. Not people who knew Craford well. But average people who saw Craford one time, then later saw Oswald on television, were making that connection. Mistaken, yes, but it was happening. 

Now if you want to say that can't have happened because nobody could make that mistake, fine, except that it did. 

And I think no one is going to dispute a second statement of fact: the killer of officer Tippit was either Oswald or it was someone who some witnesses thought looked like Oswald.

Well, some people, and I am one, question that it was Oswald for reasons given elsewhere. But if it wasn't Oswald, that leaves the killer was someone who some witnesses thought looked like Oswald.

The only REAL lookalike to Oswald then I know who could really fool careful witnesses into thinking they had seen Oswald, is John Thomas Masen, the gunsmith. I believe he can be unequivocally identified as three claimed "Oswald" sightings--a man who sold a rifle at a gas station out of the trunk of a car in Irving in the spring of 1963; the shooter at the Sports Drome rifle range, fall 1963; and Shasteen's barbershop customer in Irving, late summer/fall 1963. In not one of those cases did that person ever claim to anyone he was Oswald. There was no impersonating (claiming of someone else's identity) happening. Masen was just being Masen. People only thought it was Oswald because he looked just like Oswald, they swore it had been him. It wasn't. It was Masen, for reasons that fit and prove that match in each of those three cases. And Masen's ITTA (ATF) handler, Ellsworth, told in later years how Masen had been a dead ringer match to Oswald in appearance at the time, and how he, Ellsworth, had identified Masen, from talking with Masen, as the one at the rifle range mistakenly identified by the witnesses as "Oswald", also in a couple of other "Oswald" sigtings.

However, while he was mixed up with gunrunning, Masen is not a candidate for killer of Tippit. No track record of violent crime, no reason to put him there, etc. etc. Tippit's killer was confused in appearance with Oswald (or else it was Oswald), but it wasn't Masen. 

So that is how it comes back to Craford as the leading alternative to Oswald as candidate for killer of Tippit. The record shows people then, who did not know Oswald at all and did not know Craford before seeing him either, were confusing Craford with Oswald. That is fact. And there are other grounds on which to make a case that Craford is a suspect in the Tippit killing. And to my knowledge there has been no other good Oswald-similar-appearance candidate proposed. So it comes back on Craford as the suspect we have and know, without categorically ruling out a better solution.

And after I among others had made the case for Craford as a Tippit killer suspect, only several months ago did we learn about Gavan in the UK having found the grandson of Scoggins who said, and the grandson sure comes across to me as sober and credible as a witness in the videotaped interview, that his grandfather had been asked in advance to be parked with his cab where he was at that particular time, by someone associated with Ruby.

Well, that suggests whoever asked Scoggins that was premeditating something to do with the Tippit killing (not that Scoggins knew or was involved, he would have just been wanted there as a getaway car option).

And lo and behold, by a total coincidence (?), Ruby was Craford's employer and housing provider. 

Interesting, no?

May I ask Michael, do you think Tippit's killer was Oswald, and if not, do you agree most witnesses thought the killer looked like Oswald, and do you have any non-Craford specific suggestion or suggestions as to a possible suspect or suspects?

[Michael Kalin]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

May I ask Michael, do you think Tippit's killer was Oswald, and if not, do you agree most witnesses thought the killer looked like Oswald, and do you have any non-Craford specific suggestion or suggestions as to a possible suspect or suspects?

Oswald did not kill Tippit, and there's no point in tallying statements made by a mass of suborned witnesses.

No suggestions. My aim is to rescue the author from the Crafard detour, hoping he gets back on track in pursuit of the main theme of the article.