Legacy of Secrecy (27 page)

Theater—every minute of every action in between has been the subject

of intense debate for decades. But it’s important to note one reason why

Oswald might have left the first-floor lunchroom, where he had eaten

with the minority employees, to go up to the second floor to get a Coke.

Unlike the all-white, main lunchroom on the second floor, the minor-

ity lunchroom had no soft-drink machines. Oswald’s association with

minority employees is why suspicion fell so heavily and quickly on

him, even though several other employees also left the building soon

after the shooting. At the Book Depository, Oswald’s eating lunch with

minorities helped to typecast him as a brazen leftist. Hence, once a rifle

was found on the sixth floor of the Depository, and it was noted that

Oswald was one of the people who had left the Depository, he became

a suspect even before the events with Officer Tippit.

After JFK’s assassination, police detained at least twelve men but

all would be released. No records were kept about some of them, like a

young man wearing a black leather jacket and gloves who was arrested

at the Dal-Tex building, across from the Depository (some witnesses

said they thought shots came from the Dal-Tex, which did have a clear

view of the motorcade). Another man taken into custody at the Dal-Tex

was released, even though Congressional investigators later found he

was a convicted criminal from Los Angeles who once had an associate

who “knew Jack Ruby well”; the same associate “was an acquaintance

of both Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante.” The man arrested at the

Dal-Tex even used an office in New Orleans that was on the same floor

as an office used by David Ferrie.31

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At 12:38 PM, Parkland Hospital admitted JFK and Governor Connally.

As with so much in the assassination, thousands of pages have been

written about the desperate, fruitless attempt to save JFK’s life. In order

to understand the later reactions of Bobby Kennedy and other officials,

it’s important to note the nature of the wounds observed by the doctors

and nurses at Parkland. A general medical principle demonstrates the

significance of what the medical personnel saw at Parkland and what

was later seen at JFK’s autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Usually, a

bullet makes a small entrance wound and a larger exit wound. In the

case of test bullets fired from rifles like the Mannlicher-Carcano found

in the Book Depository, the exit wound was usually at least 50 percent

larger, sometimes more.

Doctors at Parkland noticed two wounds, a small wound of entrance

just below JFK’s Adam’s apple, and his massive head wound. If JFK had

been shot from the front, the largest part of the head wound could have

been expected to be located toward the rear of his head. According to

Summers, “seventeen of the medical staff who observed the President

in Dallas have described the massive defect as having been more at the

back of the head than at the side.” Dr. Robert McClellan, a surgeon who

worked on JFK, approved a drawing of the wound in the 1960s that

showed a huge wound just behind JFK’s right ear.32

In a video oral history, Dr. Charles Carrico later described and dem-

onstrated what he saw: “With the president laying on his back, I could

see the whole wound in his head.” He said that the head wound “was

about right here, as I recall [placing hand on right side of head, toward

the back], and it was about as big as I’m showing it with my hand [open-

ing hand about grapefruit size]. You know, a big chunk of bone and

scalp missing.”33

As for the small throat wound, a neat tracheotomy incision was made

over it, to insert a breathing tube. Michael Benson wrote that “every

medical professional who saw JFK in Parkland described the throat

wound as an entrance wound,” including Dr. Perry, who made the tra-

cheotomy incision.34 The Dallas doctors were so busy trying to revive JFK

that they apparently didn’t notice the small bullet wound in his back.

Also present at Parkland was the President’s personal physician,

Admiral George Burkley, the only doctor present at both Parkland and

the autopsy. However, Burkley’s car had not headed to Parkland imme-

diately, so he arrived fifteen minutes after JFK’s body. He did not witness

the throat wound before it was obscured by the small tracheotomy inci-

sion, though it’s unclear if one of the other doctors told him about it.

As the Dallas doctors worked desperately on JFK, several other things

happened at Parkland that would impact the case. As Hugh Sidey (later

the editor of
Time
magazine) observed, Secret Service agents cleaned and

wiped down JFK’s limousine. While cleaning removed the gruesome

remains of the shooting, it also eliminated crucial blood-spatter evidence

that could have helped to determine the source of the shots.

Lyndon Johnson was in a frantic state when he arrived at Parkland;

though he was uninjured, onlookers feared he was having a heart attack.

His condition was not surprising, considering that one or more of the

shots that hit JFK and Connally had traveled over LBJ’s head as he sat

just two cars behind JFK. Anyone who still thinks that LBJ was behind

JFK’s assassination should consider the foolishness of someone’s plan-

ning an attack in which he himself could have been killed, if the gunmen

had been jostled or attacked while firing.

Also at Parkland was Jack Ruby, who spoke with noted journalist Seth

Kantor at the hospital at around 1:28 PM. Another witness saw Ruby

at Parkland as well, though Ruby later denied being there. About fif-

teen minutes later, the so-called “magic bullet” was found on a hospital

stretcher by Parkland senior engineer Darrell Tomlinson. The almost

pristine bullet was found on a stretcher Tomlinson was sure had not

been used for either JFK or Connally. However, the stretcher had fresh

bloodstains on it (from a bleeding child, less than an hour earlier), and

was next to another stretcher, so someone might have thought those

stretchers had been used for JFK and Connally.

Experts have noted numerous problems with the “magic bullet,” from

differing accounts of its description to chain-of-evidence and identifica-

tion problems. Just recently, for example, the FBI agent who supposedly

took the bullet back to Parkland to show witnesses has denied that he

ever had the bullet in his possession, according to Dr. Gary Aguilar and

Josiah Thompson.35

After JFK was pronounced dead, a struggle ensued over his body.

Around 2:00 PM, JFK aides Dave Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell, along

with the Secret Service, tried to take JFK’s body back to Air Force One.

But the Dallas medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, and Justice of the Peace

Theron Ward refused, saying the autopsy had to be done there, accord-

ing to Texas state law. The impasse quickly escalated. As Anthony Sum-

mers concisely described, after Judge Ward said JFK’s murder “was just

another homicide as far as I’m concerned,” an angry O’Donnell said,

“Go screw yourself.” Then “the Secret Service agents put the doctor and

the judge up against the wall at gunpoint and swept out of the hospital

with the President’s body.”36

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About five minutes after JFK’s assassination, Dallas Police Officer J. D.

Tippit sped away from a Texaco service station toward the Oak Cliff

neighborhood, where Oswald lived in a rooming house and Ruby lived

in an apartment. Three witnesses interviewed by former FBI agent Wil-

liam Turner say that just before Tippit left the station, he had been looking

at traffic in an area that was only a few blocks from the triple underpass

and Dealey Plaza.37 Twenty-five minutes later, at 1:00 PM, Dallas police

headquarters tried to radio Officer Tippit, but he didn’t answer.38

Also at 1:00 PM, just half an hour after JFK’s shooting, Lee Oswald

was seen running into his rooming house by its housekeeper, Earlene

Roberts. Two minutes later, she saw a Dallas police car pull up slowly,

park in front of the house, and sound its horn twice. Then it slowly

pulled away. Roberts later said she saw two men in the car, but William

Turner has pointed out that Tippit’s uniform jacket was hanging in the

car’s window, so she might have thought that was a second officer. She

later recalled the car’s number as 107—Tippit’s car number was 10.

About two minutes after the patrol car pulled away, Mrs. Roberts

saw Oswald leave the house. She last saw him waiting at a bus stop.

Around 1:06, Officer Tippit went into an Oak Cliff record store to use

the phone, as he often did. However, this time, two witnesses found

by veteran Dallas reporter Earl Golz say that Tippit was in a big hurry,

telling customers to get out of the way so he could use the phone. Tip-

pit dialed a number, let it ring for about a minute, and then hurried out

of the store.39 A 1:08 PM call from police headquarters to Tippit went

unanswered—and that’s the last thing most experts can agree on until

Oswald’s arrest at the Texas Theater, at 1:48 PM (Central).

As described by researcher Michael T. Griffith, the official Warren

Commission story says that after Tippit saw a man who matched the

description of JFK’s assailant that had been broadcast over police radio,

Tippit “drove up slowly behind the man, pulled up alongside him, and

then asked him to come over to the driver’s window for what was

described as having the appearance of a ‘friendly chat.’”40 Oswald, the

ex-serviceman turned killer, then pulled out his pistol, shot the officer,

and fled.

For decades, numerous historians, experts, and government investi-

gators have noted important evidence, witnesses, and timing that don’t

support the Warren Commission’s version. The actions of Tippit and

Oswald, the evidence, and the witnesses have been debated in books,

articles, and websites, and have been the subjects of one entire book. We

can’t cover even a fraction of that here, but we can point out important

problems with the official story and highlight some of the facts that

weren’t available to the Warren Commission.

Noted journalist Henry Hurt pointed out that “one of the oddest

assumptions of the Warren Commission was that Officer Tippit stopped

Oswald because he was able to identify him as the man described in

the police broadcasts that started about 12:45 PM. . . . The description

itself was of a ‘white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height

five feet, ten inches, weight 165 pounds,’ believed to be armed with a

.30-caliber rifle. This description missed Oswald by six years and about

fifteen pounds.” Michael Griffith points out that “the police description

could have fit a good quarter to a third of the male population of Dallas.”

And yet “none of the witnesses who saw Tippit’s assailant just before

Tippit stopped him said the man was walking unusually fast or in any

way acting strange or suspicious.”41

We’ve noted that the married Officer Tippit had been having an affair,

and that the woman had gotten pregnant. Complicating the situation,

just over a month earlier, the woman had reconciled with her former

husband. She was employed at the restaurant where Tippit worked part-

time, which was owned by one of Jack Ruby’s best friends. The bottom

line is that Tippit could have been subject to blackmail or manipulation

to keep his personal situation from being exposed, which in those times

probably would have cost him his job.42

As
Vanity Fair
reported, one of Johnny Rosselli’s associates, John Mar-

tino—who also confessed his role in JFK’s murder—said that Oswald

“was to meet his contact at the Texas Theater” in his Oak Cliff neighbor-

hood.43 As we soon document, Oswald’s actions in the theater were more

like those of a man trying to meet a contact than those of someone who

was trying to hide after shooting a policeman. As noted earlier, it’s odd

that the official Oswald-Tippit story mirrored a scene in a then-forgotten

B movie Johnny Rosselli had helped to produce in 1948,
He Walked by

Night
. The murderous ex-serviceman in that film even kept one of his

weapons hidden away, wrapped in a blanket, just like Oswald had.

Rosselli’s associate Jack Ruby lived just a few blocks from the Tippit

murder scene. America’s foremost investigative journalist in the 1960s

and ’70s, Jack Anderson, later obtained information from Rosselli on

several occasions. Anderson wrote that Oswald had to be killed because,

according to “Johnny Rosselli, . . . underworld conspirators feared he

would crack and disclose information that might lead to them . . . so

Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.”44 Before Ruby had to do

the job himself, he apparently tried to persuade one of his many police

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contacts to do it. In fact, the night of Tippit’s death, Ruby met with one